Clare Smyth and Daniel Boulud's plans for the Admiralty Arch Waldorf restaurants revealed

27/11/25 - updated with details about the restaurants.

Promising to be one of 2026's biggest openings, The Admiralty Arch - one of London's truly iconic buildings - is currently being transformed into a new luxury hotel. The Admiralty Arch Waldorf Astoria will enjoy one of London's best views, directly down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

The hotel had already revealed who the two "Chef partners" would be - Clare Smyth who has three Michelin Stars for Core in Notting Hill, and French/American chef Daniel Boulud, whose New York restaurants have four stars between them (and who previously ran Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental). Now they've given us a few more details about those restaurants.

First up is Clare Smyth's Coreus, showing that she's still playing with the Core name with, perhaps, mixed results (see also, Corenucopia). This is being billed as a "fine dining celebration of the United Kingdom’s bountiful seas, coastal regions and farms" with a particular focus on lesser-known seafood varieties. She'll pair this with another Whiskey & Seaweed bar (she also has one at Core which we reviewed here).

Then there's Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud. That's an all-day dining restaurant that Boulud has opened in the US and Riyadh and makes it his first London restaurant since Bar Boulud closed in 2020. It will be French-styled, kicking off with breakfast, and you can probably expect the chef's signature burgers to be making a reappearance in London. This will be located up on the rooftop level of the hotel with a terrace, looking down the mall so will enjoy the best position of the two restaurants.

As for the Arch itself, it has been a home to the Admiralty, army intelligence and saw everyone from Churchill to Ian Fleming and Lord Mountbatten working there, so there's a lot of history to the space.

We've had some landmark hotel openings in London in recent years that promised big things but somewhat fumbled the actual launch, so hopefully Admiralty Arch will be learning from those. We'll find out in 2026.