Ruby Group has scored a hat-trick after winning the race to open a new hotel in the Notting Hill area of London, its third property in the city.

Munich-headquartered hotel company Ruby Group is clearly on a roll in London. It has just been confirmed that the group’s latest offering, Ruby Zoe, will soon be landing in Notting Hill. We find out more.

Ruby goes for gold in London

Ruby’s third London property will feature 173 rooms as well as a spacious street-fronting public area combining retail and hotel elements. Due to open in late 2023, the scheme will join sister venues Ruby Lucy in South Bank, which launched in 2019, and Ruby Stella in Clerkenwell, due to be unveiled in 2022.

The project will be undertaken in partnership with UK investor and developer Frogmore.

Jo Allen, chief executive of Frogmore, said: “We are delighted to have secured Ruby Hotels as an occupier on our Notting Hill Gate Estate. When we asked Gerard Nolan & Partners to market the hotel opportunity in our West Block, we received 13 bids from ten different hotel operators.

“We really love Ruby’s approach and vision for the project which we believe will complement the area. The Ruby team have been fabulous to work with, have convincing development and construction competence together with the financial resources to deliver something special, which I hope will be enjoyed by many.“

Luxury that won’t break the bank

Contemporary travellers are no strangers to the various iterations of affordable luxury that proliferate in the international hotel market, but Ruby is trying to do something very different. Its business model revolves around the concept of ‘lean-luxury’, reflecting how the streamlining of behind-the-scenes operations allows the brand to push down prices.

Ruby Group CEO Michael Struck explained: “Based on the model of modern luxury yachts, we accommodate our luxury in a relatively small area and simply leave out the unimportant. We also organise ourselves using our own technical solutions in a very different way to the rest of the industry.

“We plan and build in a modular way, centralise more, and automate consistently behind the scenes. As well as helping us to make a luxurious and unique hotel experience affordable for our guests, this approach gives us a leaner and more adaptable cost structure and means lower risks for our real estate partners. This combination of advantages helps us especially in these unpredictable times.”

Ruby’s recipe for success has already proven itself on South Bank, and no doubt Notting Hill will soon benefit from the hotel’s presence in the area. The new property will seek to embody Ruby’s lean-luxury philosophy by offering a top location, high-quality fittings and outstanding design.

Let’s take a look at some more Ruby projects: