The Dorchester's Renovation Completes as The Grill Relaunches and Stéphane Petit Rises to Executive Chef

The Dorchester's biggest renovation since 1989 reached a real milestone with the completion of its guestroom and suite transformation, led by designer Pierre-Yves Rochon and coinciding with the hotel's 2025 summer programming. The project began back in 2022, and the finished rooms mark the clearest sign yet of how deliberately the hotel has approached updating a Mayfair landmark without losing what made it one in the first place.

Dining has moved just as much as the rooms have. The Grill, one of London's most storied dining rooms, relaunched in September 2025 under culinary director Martyn Nail, working alongside rising head chef Jacob Keen-Downs, previously of Gold in Notting Hill. It is the kind of reset that a restaurant this established rarely gets, and early signs suggest the new team has been given real room to make it their own rather than simply refresh the old menu.

Upstairs, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester promoted Stéphane Petit to executive chef in April 2026, working under longtime Chef Patron Jean-Philippe Blondet at the restaurant's three-Michelin-star kitchen. The promotion reads as continuity rather than change, the kind of internal succession that keeps a kitchen's standards intact even as the person leading it shifts.

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