Founded 1997 | Parent organization Humana | |
Pharmacy was a restaurant in Notting Hill, London, which opened in 1998. 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.
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. The restaurant's artwork was celebrated in a 2011 exhibition in Leeds Art Gallery.
On February 26, 2016 Hirst opened his Pharmacy 2 restaurant inside his Newport street in South London, a conversion of 1913 theatrical workshops into a free public art gallery.