Wallpaper* Design Awards: Sharan Pasricha is Greatest Host

For our interview with Sharan Pasricha, we have been invited to fulfill him at Maison Estelle, the personal members’ membership he based in a Grade I-listed Mayfair townhouse. With its understated opulence, richly furnished rooms and crackling autumn fires, it couldn’t have supplied a greater prelude to the world the hospitality impresario inhabits. ‘It’s a spot that’s thoughtfully curated, not staged, the place you will be social or alone without having to elucidate your self,’ says Pasricha, who based the phenomenally profitable hospitality conglomerate Ennismore in 2011.

His entrepreneurial story started when, as a boy, he offered his mom’s sandwiches at his major college in Mumbai. ‘The sandwiches have been incredible and the margins even higher,’ he notes. It was a life lesson that stood him in good stead years later when he had the prospect to guide the acquisition of The Hoxton. On the time, it comprised only one lodge in Shoreditch, however he noticed a niche available in the market. ‘What struck me was the potential to create locations that folks truly lived in,’ he says. ‘The place locals labored, met and constructed their companies in the identical lobbies as travellers.’

It was that concept of neighborhood that finally grew into Ennismore. On the time, many resorts considered eating places, bars and lobbies as a ‘aspect present’, secondary to the room product. However by well prioritising these areas, Pasricha turned the standard mannequin on its head. It was a daring departure from business norms that felt dangerous on the time, nevertheless it went on to form the fashionable way of life lodge class. ‘At the moment, nearly all of our income is generated outdoors the 4 partitions of the visitor room,’ notes Pasricha.

Sharan Pasricha is Greatest Host within the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2026

The growth of Ennismore’s Hoxton model caught the eye of Accor, one of many world’s largest hospitality teams. In 2021, the 2 corporations entered right into a three way partnership that positioned Ennismore as Accor’s devoted way of life arm and considerably accelerated its world growth.

‘Accor understood that, to achieve success, way of life manufacturers should be run in a different way from conventional resorts,’ he says. So the 2 teams constructed an autonomous brand-led construction that allowed Ennismore to maintain its artistic independence whereas benefiting from Accor’s world scale. The partnership now oversees greater than 190 resorts in additional than 40 nations, with 145 extra within the pipeline, and a portfolio of 16 way of life manufacturers, together with 25hours, Delano and Mondrian.

Working at this scale has required self-discipline and consistency. Supported by 4 in-house studios overlaying interiors, graphics, partnerships and digital innovation, Pasricha emphasises the significance of retaining decision-making at model degree. ‘We obsess over each visitor touchpoint,’ he says, referring to particulars just like the scent within the foyer or the important thing card graphics. This construction permits the group to maneuver shortly whereas safeguarding the character of every idea.

The effectiveness of this strategy is clear in its upcoming openings, such because the Delano Miami Seaside, which he says shall be a defining second for Ennismore. ‘It’s a showcase of what we do finest: reimagining the model’s iconic components – just like the glass apples in every room – whereas creating culinary locations, introducing two Paris Society ideas within the US for the primary time, and bringing again the legendary Rose Bar,’ he says.

Alongside Ennismore’s world trajectory sits the Estelle model, which stays absolutely owned by Pasricha. It started with Maison Estelle in London in 2021 and shortly after expanded to Estelle Manor, within the Grade II-listed former Eynsham Corridor in Oxfordshire. Overseen by Estelle’s creative director, his spouse Eiesha Bharti Pasricha, the mission took years of restoration and represents the fullest expression of his ‘hosted dwelling’ philosophy. Subsequent up is Celeste, ‘the mischievous youthful sister’ to Maison Estelle and Estelle Manor, which is because of open in a restored townhouse in Notting Hill this yr. Members will nonetheless be on the coronary heart however, for the primary time, the general public will get a look-in with the opening of an Italian-American restaurant on the bottom ground.

Like every profitable entrepreneur, Pasricha acknowledges a bent for restlessness, particularly relating to pushing the boundaries of what hospitality will be. ‘I’m at all times asking: how will we make areas extra human, extra linked, extra surprising? There’s at all times a brand new method to shock and delight, and I can’t cease fascinated by it.’ Pasricha is at the moment obsessive about how expertise, particularly AI, is reshaping the world round us. ‘In every single place we glance, corporations are optimising for effectivity, velocity and scale,’ he says. ‘It reinforces my perception that we have to go in the wrong way in hospitality by creating areas that gradual individuals down, encourage actual connection, and foster creativity.’

From hawking sandwiches within the college yard to helming a portfolio that has reshaped world hospitality, Pasricha’s path displays the impression of a founder who understands how individuals need to dwell, work and join, and whose concepts have helped steer the path of what a contemporary way of life lodge is right now.