How Sketch went from 'obscene' to era-defining

After arocky start, the glamorous and infamous restaurant is now an institution

- JONATHAN PRYNN

It is more than quarter of a century since Algerian-born restaurateur Mourad Mazouz set eyes on the then dilapidated Georgian Mayfair townhouse on Conduit Street that was to become one of London's most talked-about-and Instagrammedvenues. Sketch is now an institution, one of only six London restaurants to hold the supreme honour in gastronomy, three Michelin stars, for the Lecture Room and Library, and home of the most famous toilets in the West End, the celebrated white egg-shaped space pods created by French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.

Sketch's success and longevity is being celebrated by the publication of a £75 doorstopper of an eponymous book, which chronicles the ups and downs of an avant garde destination now known as much for its often changing art as its food.

But it would be an understatement to say Sketch got off to a rocky start; indeed the project so nearly ended in tears before it ever got up and running.

Mazouz, now 61, left Algeria for Paris when he was 15 and opened his first restaurant, Au Bascou, in the French capital when he was just 27. A move to London with his English girlfriend in 1994 led to the launch of celebritystudded North African eatery Momo described as the Chiltern Firehouse of the Nineties in 1997.

A year later the charismatic and mercurial Mazouz started on the project that would become his crowning career achievement, alongside chef Pierre Gagnaire. The venue was originally saddled with the name Rubik's Cube because Mazouz wanted to change the decor "every week" before he realised the financial and practical impossibilities and settled on the less frantic Sketch.