The original Chinawhite London may have called it a night in 2008, but it’s now found a home in Dubai. On April 3, its doors will open for the first time in the Grand Hyatt Hotel with DJ Guy Preston and DJ Nader Razdar in tow. What happens inside, original founder Rory Keegan says, is up to you.
Keegan, who opened the original club in central London in 1998 with friends John Stephen and Patrice Goutry, had given up on clubbing by that time. He says it was “an attempt at perfection”, but that its success is down to what people made of it. It wasn’t built for important people — “Go home and be important,” Keegan says, rolling his eyes — but the crazy, unexpected personalities.
“This was about just making this perfect space where people could move into like it was the next room — the mad room in your house — the room you didn’t show your mum,” he laughs.
But it isn’t so easy to envision it as such with the calibre of the clientele it attracted.
“Sienna Miller used to be there every [expletive] night,” Keegan recalls. “That’s where she met Jude [Law], that’s where she became famous. I can tell you dozens like that. A lot of famous people came, but what’s a celebrity anymore?”
It’s not hard to see why Keegan is disillusioned with the concept. He cites Bobby De Niro — that’s Robert, to us mere mortals — and George Harrison as “very old friends”, calls DJ Mark Ronson “Ann and Laurence’s son” and remembers a time when Amy Winehouse was a nobody, playing a showcase at his club and handing out CDs like any other doe-eyed hopeful. It took Keegan one-and-a-half years to realise that the “nice American kid” he was pals with was actually David Schwimmer of Friends.
The reason so many big names — or soon-to-be big names — visited the spot was simple: it was exclusive and largely members-only, so they wouldn’t be ratted out.
“I had a deal with the press, which was — if you write about this, you’re never coming back,” Keegan says. “You’re either part of the family, or you’re working. If you’re working, stand outside, if you’re not working, come in — simple as that.”
Though members-only clubs don’t yet exist in Dubai, Keegan hopes the same kind of “fun dinner party” atmosphere will take place at the re-born spot. “This town is a good town,” he says with a confident smile.
