Cover Carlyle & Co celebrates five years with new venue in Central (Photo: courtesy of @carlyleandco/Instagram)
Carlyle & Co celebrates five years with new venue in Central (Photo: courtesy of @carlyleandco/Instagram)
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As Carlyle & Co marks its fifth anniversary with the launch of HKGTA Town Club by Carlyle & Co in Central, four of its members, Brian Sze, Edwin Pun, Derek Wong and Amanda Cheung, open up about the friendships and rituals that have made the club feel like home
In 2021, Sonia Cheng opened the doors to a private club above Rosewood Hong Kong and asked a simple question: what if a members’ club were built around personalities rather than pedigree? This year, Carlyle & Co celebrates its fifth anniversary, and expands the answer to that question, with a rebrand of its Tsim Sha Tsui original as Carlyle & Co Harbour Club, and the debut of a second address, HKGTA Town Club by Carlyle & Co, in the heart of Central.
Ask the club’s members what the club means to them, though, and they’ll tell you the milestones matter less than the people. Four of them—Brian Sze, Edwin Pun, Derek Wong and Amanda Cheung—tell Tatler what keeps them coming back.
For Brian Sze, senior vice-president at Checkout.com, the moment of belonging came before the club had even opened its doors. “In January 2020, Sonia hosted the first dinner for the club’s membership committee, before the club was finished,” he recalls. “I remember being in the room and looking around, and it was the first time in a long time that I’d been to a dinner and genuinely enjoyed meeting new faces.” It was there that Sze met fellow member Calvin Zhang and bonded over a shared love of watches. “It’s a moment that doesn’t happen often,” Sze says, “but when it does, it’s special.”
Whatever Cheng set out to build in 2021 has held its shape as the club has grown. Carlyle & Co doesn’t disclose much about who exactly fills its rooms, preferring instead to let its community speak for itself through the strength of its gatherings rather than a roster of names. That has only increased the curiosity around it.
Edwin Pun, director at the Keystone Group, found his own entry point at Café Carlyle, the Hong Kong outpost of the storied New York jazz room. “Walking into that room with the red velvet curtains, the music echoing and the chatter of people—it’s like a bit of New York City in Hong Kong,” he says. What makes him a regular, though, is subtler: a team that “welcomes you by name” and “remembers your preferences”; a level of care he says is rare nowadays.
Neurosurgeon Derek Wong describes the club in plainer terms: “It’s an escape,” he says, “a private and relaxing space in the middle of the city, filled with familiar faces.” These faces include the club associates who “ensure that every visit is special”. Ask him for a signature Carlyle moment, and he doesn’t hesitate: the last set at a Café Carlyle gig, when the room rises from its tables mid-song to form a conga line. “A perfect example of how Carlyle & Co has cultivated this community you won’t find anywhere else.”
These unscripted moments are a product of a membership model built deliberately around chemistry rather than CVs. Applicants are reviewed by committee, referrals are required and the club floor is engineered to put entrepreneurs next to surgeons next to gallerists, and let the conversation take it from there. It’s also, increasingly, a formula the club is betting can scale: two addresses, one membership and a calendar of talks, tastings and takeovers designed to run across both.
Above Amanda Cheung (Photo courtesy of: @azycheung/Instagram)
Amanda Cheung (Photo courtesy of: @azycheung/Instagram)
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Amanda Cheung, co-founder of Gokan and director of brand and heritage at her family’s Garden Company, points to the club’s knack for making the personal feel monumental. As Garden Bakery approaches its 100th anniversary, Carlyle & Co let her rename its private events space “Grandpa G’s Apartment” for the night, and built the entire menu of canapés around the bakery’s own products. “It was heartwarming and memorable,” she says—and typical, in her experience, of a club that is in a league of its own when it comes to attention to detail.
This instinct for design-led hospitality is, by the club’s own account, a priority. Global vice-president of Carlyle & Co Jonathan Frolich, who has spent over 20 years in global hospitality with Hyatt and Andaz, has said the work of running Carlyle & Co is fundamentally one of experience design; of ensuring that “everything we do for our members has a deeper strategy and purpose that connects it all together.” It’s that philosophy that now extends across two addresses instead of one: Carlyle & Co Harbour Club continuing the sky-high, jazz-lit spirit of the original Rosewood floors, and HKGTA Town Club by Carlyle & Co bringing a more compact, Central-facing energy.
The physical spaces created by Carlyle & Co may have changed since its establishment five years ago, but the instincts of those that fill it—curiosity, warmth and a genuine appetite for new company—clearly haven’t.
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As Content Director at Tatler Hong Kong, Tara shapes the brand's editorial vision across social, digital and print. She also drives the planning and execution of Tatler's flagship IPs. In her dual role as Head of VIP, she reports on Asia's most influential figures — from CEOs and leaders across business, style and the arts — curates star-studded events, and builds the relationships and communities that define the brand. Born and raised in the Middle East, she honed her craft in Dubai, crafting communication strategies for luxury brands across the Gulf. Follow her on Instagram @tarasobti.
