Pharmacy (restaurant)

Coordinates: 51°30′32″N 0°11′58″W / 51.50889°N 0.19944°W / 51.50889; -0.19944

Pharmacy was a restaurant in Notting Hill, London, which opened in 1998.[1] The venture was backed, in the early days, by Damien Hirst and the public relations guru, Matthew Freud. It gained further publicity thanks to a dispute with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain which claimed the name and the pill bottles and medical items on display could confuse people looking for a real pharmacy. The name itself was breaching the Medicines Act 1968, which restricts the use of "pharmacy". The restaurant's name was subsequently changed to "Army Chap", and then "Achy Ramp": anagrams of "Pharmacy".

However, initial plans to open further restaurants outside London were quietly dropped and the restaurant itself closed in September 2003.[2][3][4]

Hirst, who had only loaned the restaurant the artwork on display on the premises, went on to earn over £11 million when the items were auctioned at Sotheby's.<ref name=Sotheby's>Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (October 2004). ""Pharmacy" restaurant items sell for £11m". The Pharmaceutical Journal 273 (7322): 594. Archived from the original on 28 October 2007. </ref> The restaurant's artwork was celebrated in a 2011 exhibition in Leeds Art Gallery.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Pharmacy Restaurant & Bar". Damien Hirst. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
  2. ↑ Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (September 2003). "Pharmacy restaurant and bar closes". The Pharmaceutical Journal 271 (7268): 396. Archived from the original on 8 October 2007.
  3. ↑ Barton, Laura (24 September 2003). "The drugs didn't work". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
  4. ↑ Reynolds, Nigel (23 September 2003). "Artist's "Pharmacy" restaurant closes". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
  5. ↑ "Damien Hirst serves up restaurant art". BBC News. 6 July 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2013.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 26, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.