Minor Hotels will bring the legendary London dining institution to Midtown Manhattan in early 2027, housed in a landmark 1905 building near Bryant Park
A London Icon Prepares to Plant Its Flag in New York
The Wolseley, the celebrated London all-day dining institution that has become one of the most culturally significant restaurants in the English-speaking world, is crossing the Atlantic. Minor Hotels — the Bangkok-based global hospitality group that is part of Minor International PLC — has announced that it will debut The Wolseley Hotels brand with a flagship property in New York City, scheduled to open in early 2027. The announcement marks Minor Hotels’ entry into the United States market and sets the stage for what the company describes as a global brand expansion that will extend to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The Location: A Landmark Building Near Bryant Park
The Wolseley Hotel New York will occupy a historic building near Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, replacing The Chatwal New York, which had operated as part of the Unbound Collection by Hyatt. The building at that address was originally constructed in 1905 as the clubhouse for The Lambs Club, one of the oldest performing arts organizations in the United States, and was designed by the renowned architectural firm McKim, Mead and White — the same firm responsible for the original Penn Station, the Morgan Library, and dozens of other New York landmarks. New York-based developer Ben-Josef Group Holdings, which acquired the ground lease for the property in October 2025 in a deal reported at approximately $53 million by Commercial Observer, is the owner and developer of the 76-key hotel. The boutique scale — 76 rooms — is consistent with the intimate, character-driven sensibility of The Wolseley brand.
What Is The Wolseley?
The original Wolseley at 160 Piccadilly in London opened in 2003 in a building that had previously housed a bank and, before that, a showroom for the Wolseley Motor Company. Founders Jeremy King and Chris Corbin transformed the dramatic Florentine-influenced space into an all-day brasserie that quickly became one of London’s defining social and culinary institutions — a place where breakfast meetings, long lunches, and late suppers coexist within a room of extraordinary grandeur. The restaurant was sold in 2023, eventually becoming part of the Minor Hotels portfolio. Its reputation for architectural character, culinary excellence, and a genuine sense of occasion — what Minor Hotels CEO Dillip Rajakarier calls “hotels anchored in culinary excellence, architectural character and a genuine sense of occasion” — forms the explicit template for the New York property.
Minor International’s American Ambitions
For Minor International, which operates more than 530 hotels in 56 countries under brands including Anantara Hotels and Resorts, Avani Hotels and Resorts, NH Hotels, and NH Collection, the New York opening is the culmination of a long-term ambition to establish a presence in the United States market. The company entered India in February 2026 with an Anantara property in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and has announced plans to open 50 new hotels globally over the next decade. Minor Hotels’ global portfolio spans luxury to lifestyle segments across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Aviv Laurence, CEO of Ben-Josef Group Holdings and owner of the New York property, described the project as a moment of genuine cultural significance. “Together with Minor Hotels, we are creating a destination that celebrates heritage, hospitality and the enduring appeal of classic European luxury,” he said in the official announcement.
What This Means for Midtown Manhattan
The arrival of a boutique luxury brand of The Wolseley’s cultural stature to Midtown Manhattan matters at several levels. Bryant Park, the 9.6-acre park that was transformed in the 1990s from a crime-ridden space into one of the city’s most activated public squares, has become one of the anchors of Midtown’s revitalization. The hotels and restaurants surrounding it have trended toward the experiential and distinctive rather than the generic. A 76-room property in a McKim, Mead and White landmark building, operating under a brand known for architectural character and culinary credibility, fits naturally into that trajectory. The Bryant Park Corporation manages the park and its surrounding business improvement district, providing context on the neighborhood’s transformation. At the same time, the arrival of a European luxury hotel brand to replace an existing midtown hotel raises questions worth examining from a policy perspective: who benefits from the transformation of Midtown’s hotel stock toward increasingly exclusive and high-price-point properties, and what obligations do these developments carry to the workers who staff them? As New York considers minimum wage legislation and worker protections in its legislative calendar, the hotel industry — which employs hundreds of thousands of unionized and non-unionized workers across the five boroughs — is a sector where those policy questions play out in concrete human terms.
