Cambridge Circus, London

West Street has St Martin's Theatre and leading restaurant: The Ivy (popular with celebrities and successful artists) and until 2019 L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (London).

The Palace Theatre is on the west side of the junction, while The Ivy restaurant and a number of private clubs are accessible from the south of Cambridge Circus.

The BBC's Gordon Corera notes that the entrance described by Le Carré most closely resembles that of 90 Charing Cross Road, just north of Cambridge Circus.

[3][4] The Circus hosted Marks & Co, booksellers, who operated from 84 Charing Cross Road, which featured in Helene Hanff's 1970 book 84, Charing Cross Road, which has subsequently been adapted into a stage play, a television play, and a 1987 movie starting Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, and Judi Dench.

Hanff's book, as well as her other work The Duchess of Bloomsbury (1973), detail her several-decades-long correspondence by mail with Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co.