In the middle of Dalston – the area of east London that’s a gritty medley of hipster boutiques, halal butchers and tattoo parlours – a neon sign hovers above an unprepossessing former washing-machine repair shop. Look up, and you’ll see ceramicists leaning out of their apartments for a cigarette. Below, you’ll catch the sounds of techno music drifting up from a nearby basement. This is The Hornecker Centre.

“It’s a kind of circus”, says owner Mr Tony Hornecker, perched on a wonky stool in the space’s tiny kitchen, from where he hosts around 35 guests each night. “It’s a place for people to express themselves creatively, a bit of a commune. I see the place as a living piece of art.”

An esteemed set designer and artist, who has collaborated with everyone from Alexander McQueen to Ms Kylie Minogue, Hornecker had previously run an infamous supper club, The Pale Blue Door, in his former home. It rapidly became a word-of-mouth sensation for its combination of home cooking and drag performances, and was a pioneer of London’s then-nascent “pop-up” culture. After The Pale Blue Door disappeared into the area’s gentrification vortex, The Hornecker Centre was born a few doors along.

Today, the space functions as a pop-up restaurant, cocktail bar, gallery and a haunt for local drag queens. But more than that, it’s a home base for the area’s LGBTQ+ community. Think Mr Andy Warhol’s Factory meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, cluttered as it is with second-hand furniture, local sculptures and erotic memorabilia. It’s also a living space for Hornecker and his husband, Mr Adrián Norys. “Queens will come and have a nap on our bed before going onstage, and then going off to other gigs,” Hornecker says.

In the run-up to the festive season, as the area becomes inundated with drag shows, seasonal parties and end-of-year club nights, the centre incubates culturally significant projects that are among the capital’s most-talked-about events. As the holidays begin, many of the area’s residents decamp from London, making the pilgrimage back to the suburbs for a week of television, home cooking and familial bickering. It’s then that it becomes something else: the locus of Hornecker’s chosen community, many of whom have forged their own bonds away from their biological families. That, of course, includes Norys, a stylist who now spends the holidays with Tony rather than his native Cuba. “For me it’s perfect here,” he says. “It’s where I feel most at home.”

The diva of the household is Mr Thanasis Petrogiannis, a Greek drag queen who goes by the stage name A Man To Pet – or Pet, as he’s affectionately known among friends. He’s a long-standing collaborator of Hornecker’s, and the space is frequently block-booked by punters hoping to catch his raucous performances (a bombastic rendition of Mr John Paul Young’s 1977 anthem “Love Is In The Air” is a particular highlight). “I use my Greek accent as a kind of wall,” he says. “It allows me to cross a few lines.”

Also within the rotation of performers who have joined Hornecker’s fold are the artists Rhys’Pieces, Séayoncé and Sharon Le Grand. “I’ve never been close to my biological family,” Le Grand says. “I identified as queer from a very young age and Liverpool can be a tough crowd. People like Tony have embraced the real me. Back home, Dad would park outside for 10 minutes, give us our presents and then vanish again.”

Hornecker’s own parents divorced when he was nine, and overnight he was expected to support his mother in a small council house in Hertfordshire. He’s become an instinctively parental figure to many in the scene, and his space has allowed people like Le Grand to engage with Christmas on their own terms, away from the nausea of shattered marriages and judgemental relations. “I love Christmas now,” they say. “And all of the crap that comes with it. The decorations, the songs, the films, all of it.”

The others, too, have a complicated relationship with home. After losing his mother not long before the pandemic began, Rhys’Pieces had to take over the running of his family home in London’s Hackney, in tandem with his career as a performer. “It’s nice to have my chosen family here, as well as my sisters back home,” he says.

“Tony is like my cheeky aunt,” says Séayoncé. “I love how in our community older performers pass on their skills and help new artists. The collective goal is to keep putting good work out there. This is the best family I could ever want.”

Behind the scenes, and ensuring things run smoothly, is Ms Gia Jenkins. “I’m called the stage manager,” she says, “but I’m basically whatever the boys need me to be. I’ll help out with the food, then I’m holding a feathery fan or helping a queen into their outfit, then I’m fixing a tech issue.”

Having grown up in the picturesque Welsh fishing village of Solva, she came into Hornecker’s orbit after moving to London and dating a former neighbour of his. “What I love is we’ve all come here for similar things and we share a set of values,” she says.

Next year, some of the group will take their work to Australia to create The House of Hornecker, a pop-up hotel for World Pride in an abandoned eight-storey building on Sydney’s Oxford Street. The project has been a decade in the making. Before that, though, the group is most looking forward to a brief respite from December shows.

“All that’s on my wish list is a rest,” says Rhys’Pieces. “I want my back to stop aching.”

And what Sharon Le Grand is hoping for this Christmas? “World peace,” they say. “And new teeth.”