The Grade I listed building at 30 Curzon Street that used to house Crockfords, arguably the most storied name in London casino history, is on course for a somewhat different second life. A group trading as ‘Alter Ego’ is reportedly seeking around £20 million to fund the conversion of the site into a private members’ club, joining what has become something of a rush amongst operators to open premium clubs in that particular area of London.
The plans are the work of three founders, Richard Weiss, General Manager of the St Jacques restaurant, the financier Anthony Gahan and the conservation architect Richard Penman. Between them, they are said to be targeting around 5,000 members, with a joining fee on top of an annual subscription of £2,600, which puts Alter Ego towards the pricier end of the Mayfair club scene before a single person has even walked through the door.
What’s Actually Planned for the Building
The proposal, as described, is quite ambitious for a single site. Alongside a gastronomic restaurant and a more casual brasserie, the plans are to have a pub, several bars, outdoor terraces and a Grand Ballroom, which has been earmarked for nightclub nights and private events, giving members plenty of reasons to visit beyond just the dining room. The target membership spans business, finance, investment, art and sport, which is standard territory for a Mayfair club of this kind, with the founders understood to be courting private equity money.
An opening is being pencilled in for late 2026, though anyone who has followed London hospitality projects of this scale will know that such timelines are not met almost as regularly as they are. The figure being sought from the private equity firms alongside the membership target is impressive on paper, but turning an historic, Grade I listed building into a fully functioning club, restaurant and events space in a matter of months would be an impressive achievement.
The Ghost of Crockfords
It is worth a brief look back at what the building used to be. Crockfords operated as one of Mayfair’s grand old casinos at the address for 41 years, only for Genting, the Malaysian gaming group that owned it, to close its doors in the October of 2023. Genting Casinos President, Paul Willcock, said at the time that ‘there are a combination of factors which have put high-end London casinos at a competitive disadvantage to other global marketplaces’. On that front, Crockfords was far from alone, with the Ritz and the Clermont also deciding to close down at around the same time.
Genting put the building up for sale that November with an asking price of around £70 million, with property agents at the time reckoning that a private members’ club was always the most obvious use for a site with that address and that history, ahead of the likes of a hotel, offices or even a single grand residence. Whatever the exact path the building has taken since, Alter Ego’s plans suggest that that prediction is finally coming true, albeit as a club rather than as a casino this time round.
Alter Ego would not be opening into a quiet market. Mayfair has seen no shortage of new members’ clubs launch or expand in recent years, so there is an argument that London’s appetite for this kind of exclusive, all-in-one social space, part restaurant, part bar, part event space, shows little sign of slowing down. Whether Alter Ego manages to raise the money and hit its late 2026 target is another matter entirely, but the direction of travel for 30 Curzon Street looks to have been settled either way.