A very, very British restaurant is coming to NYC as a hotel | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

As with many things in London, a given building in the city usually comes with a layered past of owners and people who have passed through it.

Located at 160 Piccadilly next to the famed Ritz Hotel, The Wolseley restaurant gets its name from a past British vehicle manufacturer that hired architect William Curtis Green to design it for their new showroom in 1921.

For more than 70 years, the building also operated as a major branch of Barclays Bank while a renovation in 1999 turned it into an upscale Chinese restaurant in 1999. While The Orient at China House did not last more than a few years, restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King eventually repurchased the building in 2003 and turned it into a dining hall inspired by the grand hotel restaurants of Europe from previous decades.

The Wolseley to open brand’s first hotel near Bryant Park by 2027

While not nearly as historic as countless other restaurants in London, The Wolseley has benefited from its proximity to The Ritz and over the ensuing decades has become sought out by travelers for quintessentially British dining experiences like afternoon tea and English breakfast as well as European classics like Schnitzel.

According to statistics from the restaurant, it sold 45,750 afternoon teas in 2025 while the wider parent Wolseley parent company is behind eight other high-end restaurants in different parts of London.

As part of its plans to expand far beyond the original restaurant location, The Wolseley is branching out into the hotel space with the launch of its first brand location in New York City by 2027.

Minor Hotels, which took control of the London restaurant in 2022 after a post-pandemic bankruptcy bidding war, will build the 76-room hotel in a building that was constructed in 1905 (making it older than the London location!) as a clubhouse for the Lambs Club theatre and social club.

An early rendering shows what the new Wolseley Hotel in New York City is expected to look like.

The Wolseley

“Architectural character and a sense of occasion”: Minor CEO on new Wolseley hotel

The 130 West 44th Street site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and had for the last 15 years been home to The Chatwal hotel.

The new hotel site will also have a restaurant to mirror the original one in London with a menu of British and European dishes as well as a hidden speakeasy on an underground level of the property for guests looking for something wetter.

The restaurant is, however, envisioned as “the social centre of the hotel” that both serves as a particularly grand centrepiece for guests and introduces the brand to those coming in for dining only.

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“Inspired by the enduring success of The Wolseley in London, our vision is to create hotels anchored in culinary excellence, architectural character, and a genuine sense of occasion,” Minor International CEO Dillip Rajakarier said in a comment on the opening that also promises guests “that same sense of timeless glamour and lively hospitality.”

While everything from room rates to the design details of the hotel remain under wraps during the early periods of planning and construction, Minor has floated the idea of Dubai as the site of the next Wolseley hotel prior to a wider expansion in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.