Pharmacy fittings set to fetch £3m in auction

Ashtrays, bars stools and other items from britpack artist Damien Hirst's now defunct Pharmacy restaurant in London's Notting Hill are expected to fetch more than £3m when they are auctioned at Sotheby's in October.

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Pharmacy: mistaken for chemist's

Lots include 10 butterfly paintings that used to hang on the walls of the first-floor restaurant, 11 wall-mounted medicine cabinets, aspirin-shaped bar stools and conical flask light fittings. A molecular model sculpture is expected to fetch £100,000-£150,000. Ashtrays are expected to sell for £100-£150. When Pharmacy first opened in 1998 it was co-owned by Damien Hirst, PR guru Matthew Freud, Liam Carson of the Groucho Club and Momo, and Jonathan Kennedy, one of the creators of the Quo Vadis restaurant in London's Soho. Shortly after opening, the restaurant was involved in a dispute with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which claimed several people had mistaken it for a real pharmacy. It was later bought by London restaurant group Hartford, which eventually closed the underperforming 108-seat eaterie in September 2003. Buy this week's *Caterer* magazine for more industry news and analysis