The Curtain: London's latest members' club hotspot

Michael Achenbaum’s timing is bold, to say the least. East London is in the midst of a members’ club boom, with the old-school luxe Ten Trinity Square opening by Fenchurch Street, The Arts Club launching an outpost in Canary Wharf and The Ned, the shiny new project from Soho House’s Nick Jones, throwing open its doors in the City. And yet it’s now, when competition has never been stiffer, that New York’s hospitality impresario has decided to make his mark on London clubland.

On Monday, the 44-year-old will open The Curtain, a six-storey hotel and members’ club on Curtain Road. Costing £70 million and having taken four years to build, it will feature 120 rooms for hotel guests, who can also enjoy a rooftop pool, spa and screening room, as well as a members-only basement drinking den, Billy’s Bar, an ornate, flower-garlanded Imperial Rose Room for members to hang out and work in, and a live-music space, LP. Even more impressive, it will host the first London outpost of Red Rooster, open to bookings from non members, from Marcus Samuelsson, the Michelin-starred darling of the New York food scene, who served as guest chef for Barack Obama’s first-ever state dinner as President.

But if Achenbaum is concerned about diving into a crowded market (aside from the new openings, Shoreditch House is just 500 metres down the road) he is not showing it. When we meet at The Curtain shortly before opening, he’s too busy looking over the furniture and making last-minute tweaks. ‘They are competition,’ he shrugs as he shows me around, ‘but lots of people have multiple memberships. The reality is people are going to choose the environment they like better.’ That said, he confesses to having deliberately set membership fees lower than Shoreditch House: £1,000 rather than £1,150 (or £3,000 per year for The Ned). He was also present at The Ned’s launch party. ‘Listen, I think it’s a beautiful building, a beautiful space — there’s no argument. It’s very, very different from what we are. They are definitely catering to a different crowd, [with a] totally different design aesthetic.’ At The Curtain, he insists, ‘what you feel is exclusive, but more — not boutique, I hate that word — personalised and exclusive.’

His confidence is not without foundation. Rangy and wolfish, in faded skinny jeans, a grey T-shirt and skull-print scarf ­— plus a Rolex with a Curtain logo green band — Achenbaum has form in creating ultra-desirable spaces. Having studied at NYU and worked in banking, he and his hotelier father, William Achenbaum, opened the first Hotel Gansevoort in New York’s Meatpacking District in 2004. The spot, and its rooftop bar with views over the Hudson River and Manhattan skyline, rapidly became a celebrity magnet. It has attracted stars from Beyoncé to Rihanna and Chris Brown. Kim Kardashian has partied there with Lindsay Lohan and, says Achenbaum, ‘stayed with us a million times’. Last year Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were rumoured to have had a secret meeting at Hotel Gansevoort just weeks before Pitt split with Angelina Jolie. Since then, the Achenbaums have opened equally glitzy Gansevoorts on Park Avenue (where Paris Hilton threw her 30th birthday bash), in Miami and the Caribbean.

He says he chose Shoreditch for his latest project ‘because it is reminiscent of the Meatpacking District that the original Gansevoort opened in’. As for the decision to make it a members-only spot, as opposed to, say, a hotel with a restaurant in the mode of fellow hot openings The Henrietta in Covent Garden (which features a restaurant from Ollie Dabbous) and the forthcoming Nobu hotel, also in Shoreditch, he says: ‘If you want to be successful in the hotel industry you need to add an element of exclusivity.’

The Curtain is named after the 16th-century Curtain Theatre, which was situated across the street and was where the first performance of Romeo and Juliet was shown, and the building itself is a colossal rabbit warren, half below ground, half above. Each step brings a new colour scheme and theme, from the traffic-light walls in the restaurant bathrooms to the Titanic-inspired gym; the ‘olde worlde pub’ feel of Billy’s and the English country garden vibe of the Imperial Rose Room. Quirky extras rule, from Pac Man machines in the Rose Room to wall-mounted stag heads wearing blindfolds in the lobby. Much of the art is by artists championed by Steve Lazarides,

Banksy’s one-time agent. Achenbaum is loaning his own Banksy mural to the hotel, to take pride of place in Billy’s. A ‘six-figure piece’, it’s a cardboard cut-out of Flying Copper (2003) — a police officer in riot gear with an acid-house yellow smiley in place of the face and white wings on its back — that was the original centrepiece of Banksy’s 2003 show. ‘I bought it many years later from a private collector.’

Drinks come courtesy of Trash Tiki, the innovative ‘anti-waste punk pop-up’ company who recently shook and stirred cocktails at wastED, the Selfridges pop-up from Achenbaum’s fellow New Yorker Dan Barber. As well as overseeing the menu at Red Rooster, Samuelsson (who Achenbaum describes as ‘a rock star unto himself — beyond kind and talented and amazing’) has designed the hundreds of dishes available throughout the building. There will also be taqueria to add to London’s Mexican wave of mini tortillas. ‘We actually decided to have a taqueria a year ago, so before tacos got hot,’ says Achenbaum. He hardly drinks alcohol himself (he’s a Coke Zero junkie) but plans to taste test every single dish served before leaving.