The cigar seller to the stars who spent ten years trying to buy his favourite shop

Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Lopez and Jason Momoa are among the high-profile customers of Laurence Davis’s luxury cigar business, Sautter. But before he owned it, Davis was perhaps its most persistent customer.

Davis, 65, has been a cigar enthusiast since his grandfather gave him a box of Montecristo No. 2s for his 21st birthday. Years later, he asked Sautter’s then-owner, Desmond Sautter, if he would sell him the business. Sautter declined, but promised that Davis would be the first to know if he changed his mind.

“I called him every day for the next ten years,” Davis recalls. “We had the same conversation every day.” Then, in 2005, Sautter told him: “I think today is the day.” His asking price was £1 million. Davis’s response? “I’ll meet you at your lawyer’s office at three o’clock.”

At the time, Davis was a London property developer with experience in residential and commercial projects. But cigars were his passion. He admits he had surprisingly little knowledge about the business he had just agreed to buy. “I knew there were no debts on the balance sheet,” he says.

Today, Sautter sells premium cigars from its Mayfair and Knightsbridge shops, alongside an online business. Its range starts at around £20 for a single cigar and reaches £6,000 at the top end. The Knightsbridge branch also has a lounge, where customers can sit, talk and explore its extensive whisky collection. Davis, who is in one of the stores daily, says the group sells between 20,000 – 30,000 cigars a year and is on course to turn over around £5.5 million this year.

For Davis, the appeal goes beyond the product. He describes the Knightsbridge lounge as a place where customers from different walks of life strike up conversations. He recalls an Israeli and an Arab customer debating the conflict there. “They may not agree on everything,” he says, “but they can still have a proper conversation without raising the temperature.”

Davis, a member of Western Marble Arch Synagogue, estimates that around 500 of Sautter’s 3,000 to 4,000 customers are Jewish. He believes Jewish customers are “disproportionately represented” among cigar smokers. Asked why, he says: “I think it’s seen as a marker of success and the chance to enjoy one of life’s luxuries.”

He is also seeing an increasing demand from religious customers, some buying cigars as gifts. Davis is currently working on creating a range of kosher for Pesach cigars to be ready for next year.

The wider luxury market has had a difficult run. Sales of personal luxury goods fell two per cent worldwide in 2025, according to Bain & Company, although the consultancy expects a modest recovery for this year. Davis sees a similarly mixed picture among his own customers.

“The top end isn’t cutting back – they’re buying more,” says Davis. “Customers in the middle of the market, meanwhile, have moved away from increasingly expensive Cuban cigars towards alternatives from Nicaragua and Honduras. People are buying less, but better.”

Sautter has nevertheless lost some valuable regulars. Davis says around 500 customers left the UK amid changes affecting non-doms. “Some were visiting the shops once or twice a week. But there are still plenty of people with money to spend. People will give up other purchases to keep buying what they enjoy.”

Regulation is also on his mind. From January 2027, the Tobacco and Vapes Act will prohibit the sale of cigars to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009. The government is separately consulting on extending plain packaging rules to cigars. Davis argues that cigars are too often treated in the same way as cigarettes and worries that the proposal could mean losing their decorative boxes.

Despite those pressures, Davis remains confident in the industry and is expanding Sautter’s reach. His wife Melanie, who has worked in fashion for more than 30 years, designed a Sautter-exclusive jacket with dedicated pockets for cigars and a lighter. “She got tired of me always leaving my cigar case behind in restaurants.” Priced at £175, they have sold around 3,000 units. The couple have since added shirts and gilets, with the clothing range reaching customers in the US, Europe and Israel.

Sautter’s Laurence Davis and his wife Melanie at the Ignite Trade show at Whittlebury in May this year

The expansion goes beyond clothing. Sautter supplies cigars to restaurants including Carbone at The Rosewood and the Wild Tavern group, and has been chosen to provide cigars at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas as part of November’s Formula One weekend.

He is also developing Sautter’s own cigar line for a planned launch in March 2027, alongside a wholesale operation in the US. Davis says he has agreed two deals there: one involving an initial 22 locations, and another for a standalone store. His longer-term ambition is to franchise the Sautter name into hotels and terraces.

For Davis retirement holds little appeal. He is in one of his London shops every day he is in the country. “I love the social interaction, which is why I prefer selling in person than online.”

Business runs through the family, though his children have chosen different paths. His son Barney is a football agent, while his daughter Grace works in music and celebrity management. Davis is also grandfather to five-year-old Maxi.

Would he recommend entering the luxury market now? Davis’s answer is characteristically emphatic. “You can’t play at this. It’s not a hobby – you have to be all in.” And, he adds, a would-be founder needs enough money to see the idea through.

sauttercigars.com