Auberge Collection plans to open the Grade I listed mansion at 94 Piccadilly in 2027, with interiors by Jean-Louis Deniot and a Major Food Group grill in its restored ballroom.
Cambridge House was built to entertain, and its new operator intends to put it back to work. The Palladian mansion at 94 Piccadilly, home to the Naval and Military Club from 1865 to 1999, is due to debut in 2027 as a 102-room hotel run by Auberge Collection. Its restored ballroom becomes Major’s, a grill from the New York group behind Carbone.
The date has moved before. Auberge’s appointment in July 2024 pointed to late 2025, a release in June 2025 gave spring 2026, and the restaurant announcement that October said 2026. The hotel now says 2027.
From Egremont to the In and Out
The 2nd Earl of Egremont commissioned the house in 1756, and Auberge says it was built to entertain the political and social elite of the age. It is listed Grade I. Lord Palmerston used it as a second Downing Street, Queen Victoria was received there, and the Duke of Cambridge lived in it before the Naval and Military Club, known as the In and Out, took it over. The club bought 4 St James’s Square in 1996, and the Naval and Military Club has been there since.
Reuben Brothers own the building as part of their £1 billion regeneration of the Piccadilly Estate, which takes in the cobbled streets of Shepherd Market beside it. The same family owns Admiralty Arch, which opens as a hotel on The Mall this autumn.
A piano nobile of suites
Jean-Louis Deniot has designed the hotel: 78 bedrooms and 24 suites, six of them historic suites that together form a 6,500 square foot piano nobile on the principal floor. Six residences sit beside them, led by a penthouse called Fleming House. Baeden House, the spa, spreads across three floors with a swimming pool and a bathhouse, and Auberge names Britain’s ancient healing traditions and the Roman bathhouse among its references. A private members’ club is planned to follow in 2027, and Laura Gonzalez was named in 2024 as the designer of its bars, dining rooms and club rooms.
Etienne Haro is managing director. He comes from The Mark in New York, after earlier roles at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai and La Mamounia in Marrakech.
A grill in the ballroom
Major Food Group was founded in New York by Jeff Zalaznick, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi. At Major’s, the group plans to bring its American chophouse into conversation with the London grill, and Jamie Reuben names The Grill in New York as the inspiration. The menu is to centre on cuts of meat and seafood, served with tableside rituals by service captains, and the drinks list promises at least ten versions of the martini.
Auberge dates the dining room to the club’s works on the house in 1878, and Major’s will run from there into the jasmine courtyard beside it.
Five rooms and a whole house
The hotel publishes five rooms with figures. Major’s seats 170 or takes 350 standing. Palmerston Court, a covered courtyard at the centre of the house, seats 68 or takes 150, and The Reuben Bar, a bar and cigar lounge, seats 65 or takes 130. The Orangery seats 40 and the Jade Room 36. The whole house can also be taken as a buyout.
Major’s is both the ballroom and the hotel’s restaurant. At Admiralty Arch, the same owners’ ballroom seats 320 for dinner.