Parent company Minor Hotels will open an all-day brasserie and 76-bedroom hotel near Times Square early next year.
Located close to Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, The Wolseley Hotel New York will occupy a building at 130 West 44th Street, originally constructed in 1905 as the clubhouse for The Lambs Club.
It will mark the brand’s first hotel worldwide and ‘establish New York as the flagship destination for The Wolseley Hotels’, according to Minor.
The opening will also introduce The Wolseley restaurant and bar to the US for the first time.
As the well as the main restaurant, the hotel will be home to a cellar-level speakeasy bar ‘designed to provide a more discreet and atmospheric setting’.
Minor says that The New York flagship will establish the foundation for a ‘selective and deliberate global rollout’, with future properties planned for ‘some of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities’ across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East.
Five to seven locations planned
In an interview with The Times, Dillip Rajakarier, chief executive of Minor International, said the group aims to have at least five Wolseley locations, both standalone restaurants and hotels, around the world within the next five to seven years.
“The US is a key market for us, and it’s so well versed with The Wolseley,” said Rajakarier. “Once we’ve launched in New York it will be easier for us to take The Wolseley to other parts of the world.”
The Wolseley has signed for two markets in the Middle East and is also looking into further expansion in the UK, but Rajakarier said it would not open in “secondary or tertiary locations”.
He added that while the target of opening five locations over the next five to seven years appeared modest, it was due to the group being selective on where it opens.
“Some people will say that is a low number, but for us we want to be very, very selective. In terms of having 50 Wolseleys or something, that is not the goal for us.”
Minor International took on a majority stake in The Wolseley Hospitality Group, formerly Corbin & King, in 2017. Since then, the group has opened seafood restaurant Manzi’s in Soho and The Wolseley City.
In 2023 it opened a Café Wolseley pop-up at the Anantara Siam Bangkok hotel to test out the brand overseas.