The adsorption of metal-free phthalocyanine molecules on an anisotropic Au(1 1 0)(1 × 2) surface has been studied with ultraviolet (UV) photoemission, low-energy electron diffraction and low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. In all cases, the molecules form rows in the [1 $\bar{1}$ 0] direction, i.e. along the troughs of the reconstructed substrates. However, depending on the exposure and adsorption temperature, the substrate maintains (1 × 2)- or transforms into a (1 × 3)-reconstruction, and the molecular separation along the rows shrink from six to five times the Au–Au interatomic distance. The results are in agreement with previous density functional theory (DFT) calculations.