Mourad Mazouz, 61, was born in Algeria and moved to Paris when he was 15. He opened Au Bascou, his first restaurant in the French capital, when he was 27, and Momo in London in 1997. Sketch followed in 2002 with cuisine overseen by French chef Pierre Gagnaire but five years of fixing the structural problems of the Georgian building meant that the cost had ballooned to £12.5m by the time it opened, making it then London’s most expensive restaurant launch.
Though the ground-floor Gallery and first-floor Lecture Room and Library were initially savaged by critics, the Lecture Room won its third Michelin star in 2019. As the restaurant prepares to host its annual Art & Design exhibition, this year called ‘Dreamscapes’, Mazouz tell us how the fusion of high art and haute cuisine has kept Sketch at the pinnacle of London dining.
