Why Mayfair’s exclusive members’ clubs are on life support

Eilidh HargreavesThu, October 29, 2026 at 3:05 PM UTC

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Annabel’s, formerly known as being one of the world’s most exclusive clubs, now ‘feels like a destination for wannabes’ - Stuart C Wilson

At 2:54am on September 24, six minutes before closing time, Maison Estelle – the private members’ club in Grafton Street whose guests have included Princess Beatrice, Johnny Depp and Kim Kardashian – sent an email to its members explaining the Grade I-listed Georgian townhouse would be temporarily shut down. The closure “relates to information received from the Metropolitan Police and following a serious public safety matter outside the premises”, the message stated.

The shutdown had been forced by Westminster city council in the wake of a Maison House Party thrown to celebrate the reopening of its resident nightclub, Luckies, five days earlier. There was a major breach of licensing agreements, members feared the townhouse was so busy there was no safe emergency exit, and, as The Telegraph revealed, a gun – real or pretend – was pulled on Estelle security. While no arrests have been made, a Metropolitan Police investigation is ongoing.

Princess Beatrice (right) and Cressida Bonas attend Annabel’s in 2014 - Mark Robert Milan

“What was wild,” says journalist Carson Griffith (who initially broke several elements of this story via her Substack publication RPS) “is that people who were there that Saturday night [September 19] went back to the club [the following week] and it was business as usual. They just felt like nothing was going to happen afterwards. Members didn’t really know what was going on.” For a fee of £5,950 a year, many felt that wasn’t good enough.

Maison Estelle, which refused to comment when contacted by The Telegraph, will be compensating their members for double the value of the pro-rated membership fees for the period of closure. “They are doing right by their members,” says Griffith, “but it’s the worst possible timing for this club. They have just signed a 30,000 square foot lease in a legendary location – the Limelight building – in New York City.”

Mayfair’s Maison Estelle closed at the end of September after an alleged incident involving a gun

Indeed, even with the compensation scheme in place, Maison Estelle now faces the very real prospect of losing members who have stuck with the club since it was founded five years ago. Some are looking at jumping ship to the new Pembroke Club – a £100m development currently in soft opening. But the potential departures are not because of one bad night. Many complain there has been an influx of unsuitable members since the club opened two outposts – Estelle Manor in the Cotswolds and Celeste in Notting Hill – in 2023 and 2025 respectively. “It’s changed. It’s gone younger. It’s got too many financial entrepreneurs,” says one disgruntled patron. “It has become less exclusive than I would have hoped. Whereas 5 Hertford Street – which is more blue-blooded – has maintained that.”

Just as Estelle gobbled up disgruntled Annabel’s members when it first opened, the herd is moving again. In that respect, the situation is not novel. But its difficulties do reflect a new reality: that a general malaise has settled over Clubland.

For a start, the part of London so many of them occupy appears to be on the decline. The Berkeley Square area of Mayfair – home to Annabel’s (£3,250 per year), Dover Street (The Arts Club – £3,200 per year), Albemarle Street (Oswald’s – £POA), Grafton Street (Maison Estelle) – is now a crawl of influencers, prostitutes, sugar daddies, the homeless and the breed of gigantic Rolex that exudes wealth without taste. Not to mention the criminals who want to take advantage of bling wealth: Mick Jagger’s fiancée, the former ballerina Melanie Hamrick, spoke of being physically attacked on the square earlier this year.

A young Prince Harry leaves the historic Arts Club in 2012, where membership fees are now £3,200 per year - Mark Milan/FilmMagic

To make matters worse there is an increasingly widespread feeling that, even behind the club’s doors, things are going in the wrong direction too.

Once a passport to exclusivity, many feel they are no longer as private as they ought to be. More and more new clubs keep opening – diluting the system. They cannot all fight for the same 1 per cent (many of whom have already packed up for tax reasons) so bar to entry drops. Formerly the preserve of the gentry and the truly glamorous, a number of clubs now stand accused of opening their doors to those help them pay the bills, but do little to enhance their reputations.

In January this year, Knightsbridge restaurateur Vikas Nath, 63, was found guilty of attempting to spike a woman’s drink with a date-rape drug in Annabel’s. Staff were praised by prosecutor Tim Clark KC for intervening, swapping out the drink and calling the police, preventing a serious incident from materialising and facilitating the swift arrest of the perpetrator. But it spoke to what some current and former members describe as a downgrade in “the mix” of clientele.

Restaurateur Vikas Nath was found guilty of attempting to spike a woman’s drink at Annabel’s earlier this year - PA Wire/Metropolitan Police

Mark Birley, who opened the club named after his wife, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, in 1963, was obsessive about who worked for him and who got in. “Everyone from the Kennedys to the Royal Family came, and I once found myself standing next to Frank Sinatra without realising it,” Lady Annabel once told me. When Birley sold up to Richard Caring in 2007, all of his clubs (including Mark’s, Harry’s and George) were swallowed into the impressive marketing machine of Caprice Holdings. They host incredibly popular parties and events in beautifully opulent spaces – the height of new money glamour.

The resulting publicity was good for Caring, who recently exited his majority stake in his hospitality empire for a reported £1.4bn. But some long-standing clients felt let down. “My parents used to be members of Annabel’s when the parties were wild, the staff knew immediately you prefer your martini with a specific vermouth and that you would much rather prefer to be in that corner,” says one millennial regular who has recently stopped going. “The attention to detail was there, the decor was iconic, members and clientele all knew how to have fun and honour the meaning of a members’ club. Cut to today: it’s a melting pot of potent perfume that makes your nose twitch, paired with lips that are about to burst. It no longer feels like a members’ club, rather a destination for wannabes.”

Not all agree. One member of 15 years argues that “the spirit of Annabel’s is still very much alive. I’ve made some of my closest friends through the Club, and there really is nowhere else quite like it.” A spokesman for Annabel’s responded: “Annabel’s continues to thrive as one of the world’s most celebrated private members’ clubs. With an extraordinary community of members and an ever-evolving programme of world-class dining, culture and entertainment, the Club remains as celebrated and relevant today as ever.” Like Estelle, Annabel’s is now expanding to New York, opening next year. Both are hotly anticipated in Manhattan.

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Some members feel that Annabel’s has lost its edge in recent years - Getty Images/Peter Dazeley

It is not all doom and gloom in the clubs’ historic London heartland, either. Some are bucking the downward trend, suggesting the scene is not dead yet.

One such club is 5 Hertford Street, known as 5HS (around £2,500 a year) – although there have been groanings about its newer Thursday-only membership, which is bringing more youngsters through the door.

The reason for 5HS’s otherwise golden popularity is Robin Birley, son of Mark, who opened the club in Shepherd Market in 2012, staffed initially by many of his father’s favourite employees. Arrive in its entryway and everyone knows who you are. Spend an evening there and you’ll bump into a dozen friends – from titled aristocracy to political figures (Tory or Reform, like Robin’s half-brother Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) to Windsors, Middletons, big names in business, publishing or film and the ladies who lunch. Members are as likely to be debating whether Farage or Badenoch should strike a deal with Rupert Lowe (and they will know at least two of the three) as the new Chanel collection. Everyone feels lucky to be there – an essential part of running a successful club.

Robin Birley, son of Annabel’s founder Mark, is the reason for 5HS’s golden popularity - Evening Standard/Glenn Copus

Like his father, Robin is a hands-on owner. That is why he has managed to expand gracefully – opening Oswald’s, his very private wine bar on Albemarle Street, in 2018, and Maxime’s in New York last year. When I got the scoop for Tatler about a royal gathering at Oswald’s the night before the King’s coronation and watched at least a dozen European kings, queens, princesses and members of our own Royal family arrive, the tip did not come from Birley’s camp. In his clubs, you’d be hung for calling the paparazzi. And there are certainly no press or influencer parties.

Tellingly, Birley has something of a throwback mentality regarding membership. Insiders say it takes about 18 months to get in, if indeed you succeed. It’s a method that works – because if the right people are there then the right circles will be talking about you.

“A lot of English clubs have been there, fallen and climbed back up again,” says Griffith. “The thing with Maison Estelle is … the newer the club you are, the less room you have to make mistakes.”

To that end, there’s been an aggressive overhaul at Tramp, which ebullient Italian entrepreneur Luca Maggiore spent 20 years trying to buy from its previous owner, finally succeeding in 2023. Marred by claims in 2019 that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was spotted dancing in the nightclub with 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre in 2001, and having been dragged, tangentially, into an insider-trading scandal (the perpetrators spent their ill-gotten gains there), it was an iconic brand that needed resuscitation.

Maggiore was unafraid. The morning after the sale went through, he shut the doors and gutted the membership. Every single person. In one swoop, he established who was in charge.

“Before I bought Tramp, I visualised a 1999 scenario to bring back the brand,” he says. (It was famous for It girls like Tamara Beckwith, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Naomi Campbell stumbling out of the door.) “I realised the only way I can do that is if I adapt the founder model.” He decided not to appoint a membership committee. To establish his coterie of 1,500 members, he met thousands of people one by one before they were allowed to apply and built it by hand. To get “the mix” right he offered flexible, cheaper fees for people he felt fitted his mould but had not yet found financial success – those with plenty of class, even if not the spending power to match it. “It’s not about money,” he says. Lower earners pay less; high rollers pay more (although one of his members does complain to me about exorbitant costs). What’s important, clearly, is the calibre of individual, not only their bank balance.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson at her James Bond-themed 27th birthday party at Tramp, 1998 - Getty Images/Antony Jones

Maggiore’s current membership list spans from people in their late 20s to mid 50s, and mixes a variety of specialisms. “I need the art world, fashion, the socialites, the A-list celebrities, the sports management world, the finance world. I need at least five or six industries,” he says.

After the overhaul of clientele and a £12m refurbishment, Tramp reopened in 2024 with a modern aristocratic aesthetic and Maggiore says his retention rate is close to 87 per cent. Because he’s been unafraid to be the figurehead, Maggiore seems to have his members in check. “There’s a red line they cannot cross – if they respect me I will treat them like a king or a princess. But do not do anything that will jeopardise everything I’ve got.”

So members live with the genuine fear of termination, which has helped root out the sort of behaviours that have dragged so much of clubland down. “Let’s be real for one second. If you look like Brad Pitt and you are 63, then I can truly believe that the 28-year-old [with you] is your girlfriend. But if you don’t look like Brad Pitt, and the 28-year-old at your table is not your daughter or your colleague, tomorrow I’m going to cancel your membership.”

His approach is proving successful. Maggiore has just launched his first expansion, Tramp Health – a 16,000sq-foot palatial wellness club in Grosvenor Square. He says his members leave Tramp nightclub by 2am, sleep, and go to the health club the next morning.

In more than one way, it seems, Clubland’s future depends on cleaning up.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Money”