New luxury restaurant and hotel from the people behind Marble and Pantry

After founding South Africa’s most iconic fine-dining brand, Marble Hospitality founders David Higgs and Gary Kyriacou are gearing up to open their own hotel and a brand-new restaurant.

Celebrity chef David Higgs and serial businessman Gary Kyriacou founded Marble, a fine-dining restaurant with an open-flame cooking concept, in 2016.

Since then, the pair have expanded the Marble franchise and opened a series of new restaurants, Saint and Zioux. They also created South Africa’s first ultra-luxury petrol forecourt, Pantry by Marble, in Rosebank.

Now, the group is getting ready to open its most ambitious project to date – a brand-new hotel and restaurant. These offerings will be located within the R2 billion Olympus Sandton development.

Backed by Tricolt and Growthpoint, the development is part of the Sandton Summit precinct, which is anchored by Discovery’s head office.

Olympus Sandton comprises two towers – The Athena and The Apollo. The Athena will be 24 storeys tall and will house much of the retail and dining space.

The Marble restaurant will be located on the 18th floor, and a Pantry by Marble convenience store on the ground floor.

Positioned just under the penthouses, the hotel will occupy two full floors and have 32 rooms in the 16-storey Apollo tower.

Kyriacou told Daily Investor that their new hotel is the culmination of years of experience the group has gained from working in the hospitality industry.

“The hotel will be called Maison Marble,” he said. “For us, it’s not about just opening a hotel and putting the Marble name on it.”

“We want to take everything we’ve learnt from hospitality, restaurants, food, design, service and how people want to feel when they go out and bring all of that into a hotel.”

In every project Kyriacou and Higgs have undertaken, from opening Marble in 2016 to launching the Pantry in 2022, they have not taken a traditional approach.

When everyone else was opening franchises, they launched an experiential restaurant with top-notch service and open flames.

When nearly every forecourt in South Africa looked identical, they created a petrol station that felt luxurious, complete with wines, grab-and-go meals, local produce, good coffee, and baked goods. The same is true for their hotel.

“I think luxury has changed,” he said. “It doesn’t need to be stiff or overly formal. It can be beautiful and sophisticated but still have energy, warmth and personality. The small details matter.”

“With a restaurant, we might look after you for three or four hours. At Maison Marble, we get to look after you for an entire stay, and that gives us a completely different opportunity to create an experience.”

A brand new restaurant concept

While the Marble group may be well-versed in the fine-dining space, their new restaurant will be unlike anything they have done before.

“The restaurant is going to be called Jellyfish, which is also a name we haven’t revealed before,” Kyriacou said.

“One thing we’ve always tried not to do is copy ourselves. Marble, Saint and Zioux are completely different experiences. There’s no point in creating another Marble just because Marble works.”

Kyriacou stressed that Jellyfish needs its own personality and its own reason for people to want to go there.

“Jellyfish will be sophisticated but fun. It needs energy. It needs to work through the day and then change as you move into the evening. And with the position and the views over Sandton, we have an incredible canvas to work with.”

“We still have a lot that we want to reveal about Jellyfish closer to opening, but it’s definitely not going to be a copy of anything we’ve done before.”

He said what makes the Olympus development really exciting is that they are creating an entire hospitality destination.

“You’ll have Maison Marble, Jellyfish and Pantry all in the same development, but each one needs to stand on its own.”

More luxury hotels planned

The Marble Group previously mentioned that this new development will serve as the flagship for a future series of luxury hotels.

Kyriacou explained that while they are currently considering other opportunities, they are not interested in rushing to open hotels.

“First, we need to make Maison Marble exceptional. We need to learn from it, understand what works and establish what our version of a luxury hotel really is.”

“After that, if we find the right location and the right partners, absolutely, we would like to do more. But I don’t want to take Maison Marble and copy and paste it somewhere else.”

If they do build a collection over time, Kyriacou said he would rather have fewer incredible properties, each with its own personality, than many hotels that all feel the same.

“For me, the exciting part is that the group is starting to become much broader than restaurants,” he added.

“Restaurants taught us hospitality. Pantry is teaching us retail and convenience. Maison Marble takes us into hotels.”

While these are all very different businesses, Kyriacou said the thinking behind them remains similar.

“It’s always about asking how we can take something people already know and make the experience better.”

“We take what we do seriously, but we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously. I think you can be sophisticated and still have fun. That’s probably the best way to describe where we want to take the group next.”