Goodge Street is a short thoroughfare in Fitzrovia which bears off Tottenham Court Road about halfway up. It could easily have been called Beresford Street because in 1717 the fields on which it was built were leased to a certain William Beresford. But he died the following year and his widow remarried a carpenter called John Goodge, hence it was his family name on the estate that grew up here in the late 18th century. Goodge Street was planned as a shopping quarter rather than a residential street and still has that flavour to this day, though now with a stronger nudge towards food and drink. It's also relatively unspoiled, if what you mean by that is "still recognisable to a Londoner of the 1970s", with a reassuring absence of recent bland redevelopment. So far so Goodge.
The most traditional-looking eateries on Goodge Street are Italian, including a red-awninged Spaghetti House and the fully licensed Sicilian-run Trattoria Mondello. But numerous other world cuisines now get a look-in, including Indian street food, Lebanese mezze, Singaporean curry puffs, American milkshakes, Spanish tapas, a Chinese karaoke bar and the obligatory French artisan bakery. Come at lunchtime and you can also get gas-fuelled streetfood from stalls tucked into the brief notch of Goodge Place (because Goodge Street is not Fitzrovia's only Goodge-related thoroughfare). You'd be hard-pushed to fail to find somewhere to eat round here, although I did once manage that on a date with a vegetarian and we ended up having soup in the (now-defunct) Le Pain Quotidien on the corner.
As for pubs The Fitzrovia is your best bet for a trad boozer, the Queen Charlotte leans more towards beardy ales, the One Tun caters mainly for sports fans and Mr Fogg's is the place to go for botanical tinctures and bespoke cocktails. Should social media tempt you to the latter for a selfie I can confirm that the floral arch around the entrance is entirely artificial, having watched the proprietor assembling it from the contents of a dozen cardboard boxes. Also mind your step on the pavement because a lot of the businesses have appropriated it, be that for sitting outdoors in nicer weather or for blocking it with a surprisingly high density of portable signage (Hot Salt Beef, Ecigs & Liquids, Farrow & Ball).
A few other notes. Goodge Street is all in Camden apart from a row of five hostelries that are marginally in Westminster. A nearby open space called Crabtree Fields is named after John Goodge's original land acquisition, but is not a remnant of it. The local barber shop opened in 1967 when this street was at the heart of Swinging London. At its western end Goodge Street silently morphs into Mortimer Street, a much longer thoroughfare. And of course it's best known for its tube station which is actually just round the corner on Tottenham Court Road, indeed that was the station's name for the first nine months of its existence.
The station's a Leslie Green original with oxblood frontage, and so unsullied that it still has a separate entrance (on the right) and exit (on the left). Nobody's ever got round to adding escalators, because there isn't room, so passengers still travel up and down in a bank of lifts. A plummy voice like a 1950s radio announcer advises you which lift shall be the next lift and also to press the button to summon it, although I can't be sure if that's strictly necessary because the doors had already opened when I arrived. Alternative there are stairs, but 146 of them which places Goodge Street firmly in the Top Five Longest Tube Staircases. Down at platform level everything's tiled in creamandgreen, indeed this is a great place to get the authentic Edwardian tube experience, and that's just one Goodge reason to visit.
