What do the hotel where George and Amal Clooney married, the highest earning restaurant in the world, Sveti Stefan Island of Hollywood golden age fame, and London’s newest rooftop restaurant have in common? The answer is Petros Stathis, the softly spoken icon of the ultra-high end hospitality sector whose properties and brands across the globe have seen Rolling Stone magazine dub him the “King of Luxury”.
This year saw Petros expand his London venues with the launch of Ce La Vi, the first western world opening of his Asian-themed skyline bar brand, which began on the roof of the Marina Bay Sands building in Singapore, before expanding to Tokyo, Taipei, and Dubai. Launched in September on the rooftop of the Renzo Piano building in London’s exclusive Paddington Basin quarter, the opening marks a new expansion into British capital.
It also marks a further shift of his business empire towards creating and building brands ‘in-house’, following the runaway success of Nammos, Petros’ high-end Mediterranean beach bar concept whose venue in Dubai currently enjoys the title of highest-earning restaurant in the world.
Earlier this month, 1883 sat down with Petros to discuss luxury, brands, and his future plans.
How did your career in luxury brands start?
You could argue my career in fact began in public policy. I started out working as an adviser to the then minister of culture and sport in Greece when Athens was making a bid to host the 1996 centennial Olympic Games. The bid wasn’t successful (Athens later won and hosted the Games in 2004) but I realised how fundamental the infrastructure, property, customer experience, and branding requirements were to launch such an endeavour. My realisation of how so many equally critical elements were required to work in tandem was formed through that experience.
What was your first major investment?
There are so many you could pinpoint as being the ‘first”, but I think my acquisition of AEK Athens Football Club (last year 4th in Greece’s premier league) was arguably the transformational investment. Already by then I had built and floated on the Athens stock market a major real estate investment company – but AEK taught me just how tough it is to make it in the sports industry. There is no business like the football business where every small detail becomes a news story and captures the attention of the public, especially in a country as fanatical about football as Greece.
How did you make the move from football to luxury hospitality?
In part it was because of love. I discovered the small country of Montenegro through marriage and found a place with breathtaking bays which was untouched and virtually uninvested. I acquired a series of properties including a hilltop location we made into Nobu Montenegro, and most importantly Sveti Stefan – the iconic island famous in the 1960s as a favourite of Hollywood golden age stars. Here we turned the island into the first AMAN hotel on the Adriatic coast.
Nammos marked a significant change in your business model. How and why did you make it?
Nammos was indeed a major change. Until 2019 we had been building a hospitality business where in many cases we were providing the exclusive property from which an iconic brand – be that AMAN, One&Only resorts, or Nobu – would operate. But we were not the operator ourselves. That changed with Nammos.
I knew personally in Mykonos where we had acquired many hospitality venues a beach bar called Nammos. A family-owned business, it had been in existence for decades. I had been looking for some time for a beach bar and resort brand I could bring to Dubai, where I had relocated and had already started building out a number of venues.
In my opinion, there was no world-class Mediterranean offering in Dubai, and it seemed to me taking the Nammos brand to UAE was the answer. The real change was that this time my company, Monterock International, would operate the Dubai restaurant and resort. It was a risk, when we had never done that before, but it certainly paid off!
Nammos is now one of the highest earning restaurants in the world. What ingredients do you think contributed to that success?
I was fortunate that my team and I had had for decades a ringside seat watching how other luxury brands operated and managed their restaurants and resorts. I think our choice of Dubai as the first global location for the new Nammos was also crucial: as a consumer market, it is fast growing, affording it the capacity and open mind to new entrants; and it has a large critical mass of discerning, highly paid, and frequently dining international residents as a customer base. I think that people also want to be reminded of the ambience of the best summer vacation they ever had – and the concept of Nammos as reminder of the sun, sea, and resort where they enjoyed that is also very important.
You’ve recently launched Ce La Vi in London. Is that the first marker in a new approach?
Ce La Vi is the second brand which, along with Nammos, we manage and operate ourselves within ADMO – a joint venture between Monterock and Alpha Dhabi Holding containing a portfolio of F&B brands and businesses – and are scaling globally. We own a number of other venues in London, but Ce La Vi London is the first we have opened ourselves, rather than gained through acquisition.
I know there are some who believe Britain is in a funk at the moment – but look at the facts: London is by far the largest city in Europe, equal in size to New York. Along with critical mass it has vast financial markets – and that means high-end consumers employed in sectors ranging from banking to design, and from architecture to software and tech. It is at the same time both one of the most visited cities in the world, and one that is not cheap to visit. Combine these all together and you have exactly the target clientele you would wish for as a luxury hospitality operator. As a company building brands we can’t fail to make a success of London, just as we can’t fail to be in London.
So, London is a critical target for our expansion, and there is more to come.
What have you achieved in 2025 that is different from the previous 12 months?
Our opening and expansion in London have been the first big changes. Along with opening Ce La Vi we have strengthened our presence through additional brands in the city: Soho’s celebrity hangout Sucre, Knightsbridge’s rooftop Japanese eatery Clap, and the Lebanese Em Sherif, founded by MICHELIN Young Chef Award winner Yasmina Hayek (and located in Harrods).
We have also expanded the Nammos brand to open new locations in Cannes, Limassol and Sardinia, alongside the already operational Mykonos and Dubai venues. We have also expanded considerably in our home turf Dubai by opening several new venues, and most notably Kira Restaurant in the stunning newly built Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab Hotel.
What can we expect from Petros Stathis in 2026?
First and foremost, we have the opening of Nammos in London’s Mayfair. Obviously, there will be noticeable differences to our other Nammos venues: we won’t be laying out the sun loungers in England! But we will maintain the unique and unquestionable luxury of the Nammos brand with our venue in London.
Second, we’ll be opening our first Ce La Vi in Miami, Florida. It will be the first time our company has opened a brand of any kind in the United States.
Third, towards the end of the year we are planning an opening of Nammos in New York.
Of course, I shouldn’t forget all the work we need to do in 2026 to ensure the opening of Nammos resorts in Amaala Red Sea in the second quarter of the year and in the Maldives as planned in 2027.
Where does the ‘King of Luxury’ go for a night out?
Well, I spend a lot of time in my own venues. I like to experience them myself and expect every other guest to enjoy the same service and treatment. But really, I like the simple life. Visiting old friends and family in Athens, or time at home in Dubai and London. Trust me, when your business is hospitality, you enjoy a good night in as a much as a good night out!
