Gatti House

STRAND, WC2

Once a fine-dining haunt for actors and celebrities, the transformed Adelphi Theatre Restaurant is now home to a boutique residential scheme providing two and three bedroom apartments.

Located at 410 Strand, Gatti House is a magnificent Grade II listed building, originally built in 1886-87 and designed by architect Spencer Chadwick, the leading Victorian theatre architect whose work includes the adjacent Adelphi Theatre, Daly’s Theatre off Leicester Square and the Empire Theatre in Dewsbury.

The Adelphi Theatre Restaurant was owned by brothers Agostino (1842-1897) and Stefano Gatti (1845-1906), a wealthy Italian-Swiss dynasty who like a Victorian era version of Richard Caring/Sir Cameron Mackintosh owned a portfolio of London Theatres and restaurants including the Adelphi (purchased in 1880) and Vaudeville Theatres (purchased in 1892).

Located directly adjacent to the Adelphi floor, with opulent private dining/supper rooms on the first and second floors above and catering facilities on the upper floors.

Famous diners at the Adelphi Theatre Restaurant included Actress Dame Ellen Terry, Oscar Wilde, French film actress Sarah Bernhardt, Noel Coward, J. Bruce Ismay, the Chairman of the White Star Line, and Thomas Andrews, the naval architect of the White Star ocean liner RMS Titanic.

The daily management of the restaurant was overseen by Agostino’s eldest son John Gatti (1872-1926) and a cousin, Gaspare “Luigi” Gatti (1875-1912). In 1908 J. Bruce Ismay, a frequent user of the restaurant and Chairman of the White Star Line, gave the Gatti family the

Theatre, the restaurant at 410 Strand was the Scott’s or Ivy of its day with a grill room and fish bar famous for its pretheatre dining and a favourite haunt for actors, actresses and playwrights. The main restaurant was on the ground contract to operate the à la carte restaurants on his new ocean liners the RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic.

Ismay liked the Covent Garden restaurant so much that he commissioned Thomas Andrews to create a larger

HISTORIC ADELPHI THEATRE RESTAURANT BUILDING ON LONDON’S STRAND NOW A LUXURIOUS RESIDENTIAL SCHEME

replica for the à la carte first class dining room of RMS Titanic, alongside copying the menu and table place settings.

On 10th April 1912 Gaspare Gatti and 35 of his staff, most previous employees of the Adelphi Theatre Restaurant, sailed on the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic. On the 15 April 1912 RMS Titanic sank, taking with it Gaspare Gatti and most of his staff – part of the worst disaster in maritime history.

The Adelphi Theatre and adjacent restaurant was finally sold by Jack Gatti (one of the next generation of the family) in 1955. Fast forward to the current day and the celebrity diners and RMS Titanic history are long gone, replaced by beautiful, totally unique, bespoke design luxury apartments with beautiful elaborate interiors with ornate plasterwork, walls and joinery and carved door cases, some with feature cat’s heads (Gatti = cats in Italian).