Robert De Niro’s five-star hotel chain has angered neighbours at its new Shoreditch spot with plans to open its doors to the public for late-night entertainment.
Famed Japanese restaurant Nobu is set to launch its first European hotel in Willow Street in the coming months and bosses were last night granted a licence for live music, “performance of dance”, plays and film screenings until 1am.
Its angular glass and steel-beam design has been described by Forbes magazine as “the most architecturally interesting new build in London”.
But locals fear De Niro’s hotel will fill the mean streets of Shoreditch with even more drunken partygoers in the early hours.
Council papers show they are fed up with the “constant barrage of revellers” already blighting their lives, while police and the town hall’s own licensing bosses have questioned the impact the hotel will have.
One neighbour wrote: “Residents already find it difficult to achieve reasonable peace, quiet and the undisturbed sleep required to live a normal, functioning life.
“We regularly have to deal with broken glass on our doorstep, people urinating feet from our front door, piles of sick on the pavement close to our home and abuse being shouted at us as we leave or return to our flat in the evening.”
They went on to describe how one Saturday morning they found footprints on their car roof and bonnet where someone had walked over it after leaving a Leonard Street pub.
They continued: “Any further noise, disturbance or increase in the number of people being brought into the area will create a living environment untenable for the numerous residents on Leonard Street.”
Another, more colourful, outburst in the dossier of objections took issue with plans for a rooftop bar with a 10pm curfew: “Rooftop terrace!!!??? Don’t these people understand there are established residents here?”
Nobu Matshuisa and the double Oscar winner opened their first restaurant in New York back in 1994 and it is now the world’s most recognised Japanese restaurant chain.
De Niro’s involvement has ensured its popularity among the rich and famous and the Shoreditch resort will also hold a three-floor restaurant.
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