Ennismore founder Sharan Pasricha brings luxury hospitality to Australian shores
From London’s hottest private clubs to the world’s most beautiful hotels, the smooth operator behind Estelle Manor, Gleneagles and the Mondrian Gold Coast has finally arrived Down Under.
“Hotels are a seven-day-a-week, 365 day-a-year, every-time-zone operation,” says Sharan Pasricha, the founder and co-chief executive of hospitality company Ennismore, over virtual coffee. The 44-year-old has just returned home to London after cramming Stockholm, New York and France into the past few days. “Sounds great when I say it, but it’s not glamorous at all.”
The business seems so all-consuming that I ask whether being at home is a holiday. “Yes, home is a holiday,” he echoes thoughtfully. But then reconsiders. “Sometimes on Saturday mornings I read the week’s report out to the kids — they’re 10 and 12 — and we play some games: what we think the average spend was this week compared to last week and why. My wife thinks I’m crazy but they’ve grown up around restaurants and hotels so I encourage them to be part of it.”
The affable entrepreneur speaks quickly and enthusiastically about Ennismore (named after the building in which he and his wife shared their first apartment), the group he founded in 2011 and now one of the fastest-growing hospitality and lifestyle brands in the world.
Pasricha was born in the UK, educated at elite schools both there and in India, and founded a marketing agency in his early twenties. After a few years, he was asked by an uncle in Delhi to help with his low-key lederhosen factory, ultimately transforming it into a successful international leather manufacturer that sold to Zara and Topshop. At a New Year’s Eve party in Goa he met his now wife Eiesha Bharti — the daughter of Indian telecom billionaire Sunil Mittal — and the two returned to London together, marrying in 2009 in a multiday extravaganza packed with a who’s who of Indian society.
While studying at the London Business School and undertaking an internship with a private equity firm, Pasricha acquired The Hoxton, then a singular but basic property (the co-founder of UK sandwich chain Pret A Manger opened it six years earlier) in East London. He moved in and dedicatedly busted his chops on everything from housekeeping to maintenance, engineering, reservations, management and bar tending. He hired Nick Jones’s Soho House group to run the Shoreditch hotel’s restaurants.
Aside from casual industry jobs, it was Pasricha’s first foray into the hotel business. He renovated every inch and developed a range of offerings akin to a “town square” with everything from exhibitions to run clubs and local talks that would engage the community. “I had always found small hotels so utilitarian – you could close the curtains and be anywhere – and I wanted The Hoxton to reflect the area it was in,” he says. The framework – finding sleepy hotels and wedding them to the neighbourhood – was such a success that he took the concept to other parts of London, then expanding into Europe followed by the US.
Fast forward 15 years and Ennismore now operates 16 brands, more than 180 hotels, 500 restaurants and was valued at more than $4.18 billion in 2022. This year marks its Australian debut with the relaunch of Hyde Melbourne Place (originally Melbourne Place), Hyde Perth, 25hours Hotel The Olympia in Sydney and the Mondrian Gold Coast, a sun-splashed hotel now open in Burleigh Heads. The Hoxton Melbourne is slated for a 2027 completion.
Ennismore entered into a joint partnership with French hotel conglomerate Accor in 2021, the latter as a majority shareholder (they have since sold a 10.8 per cent stake to a Qatari consortium). The hospitality behemoth had, since the 1990s, acquired a portfolio of design-led boutique hotels and restaurants from independent operators which were consolidated under the Ennismore brand: 21c Museum Hotels, Delano, Jo&Joe, Mama Shelter, Morgans Originals, Our Habitas, Paris Society, Rikas, Rixos, SLS, SO/ and The Hoxton.
So how has Ennismore defied the impossible: staying cool while scaling up and without becoming the proverbial sell-out? “If you look back at the history of lifestyle hotels, they usually cap out at about 10,” says Pasricha, who was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2022 for his contribution to the hospitality industry. “This is usually because they lack the physical resources to grow or that they are acquired by one of the majors and the things that made them interesting ultimately die because they’ve been forced to comply with the rules of the game, shall we say.
“At Ennismore, we do lean on the mothership [Accor] for things like procurement, IT and distribution, but we’re a completely autonomous team that’s fierce about relevancy and storytelling. I think we’re still really a big startup at heart.”
Fifty per cent of Ennismore’s hotel revenue come from outside the rooms, so restaurants, bars and lobbies are a major focus. Pasricha talks a lot about “cultural relevancy” and the importance of respect within the local hospitality landscape. “For our openings in Australia we need to bring our A-game. There’s real competition here.”
Not everything Pasricha does is in multiples. He and his wife own London’s most exclusive private members club, Maison Estelle, located in a Grade-I listed Georgian townhouse in Mayfair. Stickers go on camera lenses for discretion, but that said, the likes of Madonna, former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, musician FKA Twigs, Princess Eugenie and Mark Zuckerberg have been through its doors. Entry to the style-set hotspot involves a rigorous application process and there’s currently a waiting list of 10,000. There’s no shortage of members clubs in London so what’s the secret sauce? “Eiesha and I thought of the 40 people we respect and admire that cut across music, art, fashion and finance and went to them first. Then we asked them to think about 20 people they would love around their kitchen table.”
Estelle Manor is the couple’s rural counterpart in the Cotswolds (it is open to the public, but with some areas reserved for members). The renovation of the neo-Jacobean estate by illustrious New York-based designers Roman and Williams juxtaposes antique cabinetry, crystal chandeliers, coffered ceilings, Italian damask wall-panelling and malachite-topped tables with contemporary art and midcentury Italian furniture. There’s also its Eynsham Baths spa, a supersized bone-white marble caldarium and tepidarium framed in Doric columns that wouldn’t look out of place in ancient Rome.
Gleneagles is the posh 100-year-old Scottish property in Perthshire the couple bought in 2015 and renovated over six years, bringing glamour back to the decadent, wood-panelled 1920s hotel referred to as the “Riviera of the Highlands”.
Bharti Pasricha, who was born in Scotland and raised in India, is Gleneagles’ very stylish creative director and her chic imprint can be found everywhere from the interior design to holiday decoration. The philanthropist and savvy businesswoman in her own right was an early investor in fashion brand Roksanda and the eponymous business of Glasgow-born Jonathan Saunders, among others. She documents her flawless wardrobe on Instagram (cherry-red Birkin, Dior, Celine, The Row), between trips to Brazil and Positano and visits to India and Gleneagles, where country pursuits such as falconry, equestrian training and fly fishing are on offer. She also curates the Gleneagles Arcade, where highland attire such as waxed Barbour jackets, Hunter wellingtons and Giuliva Heritage blazers are impeccably merchandised Pasricha baulks when I ask his favourite hotel. “Don’t make me choose between my children,” he pleads good-naturedly. “But some of the best memories we’ve had as a family have been at Gleneagles and we try to spend about two months of the year there. We have a home just 10 minutes from the estate which helps. It’s where I can switch off the most.”
So what’s next for Ennismore? They’re dangling the carrot over Celeste, a private members club set to open in West London later this year. But ever the operator, Pasricha quickly adds before we finish our conversation, “Australia! We’re really excited about what’s to come. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface”.
This story is from the July issue of WISH.
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