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2026 Nightlife & Dining Power List

The people who decide where we eat and drink, and who gets in.

Despite what the gossip sites and tabloids and, on occasion, this publication would have you believe, power in dining and nightlife is not measured by where Taylor Swift eats. (Several operators on this year’s list know her order. The point is that she wants the same tables as everyone else, refreshing a reservation app at 10 a.m.) Power in this business is the ability to decide where people go and what they eat and drink, and how far that control extends. A few honorees still hold it the old-fashioned way, by controlling the door. Most hold it through distance: their food, formats and brands now turn up in places they didn’t five years ago. Simon Kim debuted a gimbap stall at the U.S. Open, while Jihan Lee took gimbap from a West Village pop-up to Citi Field. The Corner Store, the SoHo room Eugene Remm and Tilman Fertitta turned into one of New York’s hardest reservations, opens at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in November.

To build this list, we measured honorees against the same seven markers. They are: who controls access to the rooms people want into, and whether that demand outlasted the opening year; how far their food, drink and formats travel beyond their own four walls; the scale and quality of their portfolios; the formats they invented and who copied them; the talent they trained who now run rooms of their own; the capital they direct; and their momentum over the next 12 to 24 months. Every honoree had to show real evidence of access or reach, and every case rests on what happened in the past year. A legacy is not a qualification. Awards and Michelin stars count as evidence, never as credentials. Follower counts don’t count at all. 

This is also, by design, an American list. The majority of operators here are based in the U.S., and the international names who made it did so by opening here. JKS Restaurants, the London group behind Gymkhana, is on it for Gymkhana Las Vegas and Ambassadors Clubhouse in NoMad, not for Mayfair.

A word on who isn't here. Several operators who have appeared on this list for years are still opening restaurants at a pace most of the industry would envy, and their absence is not a demotion. But a list that ran the same names with the same blurbs every year would tell you very little about who is changing the business, and we suspect you'd stop reading it. So we held legacy operators to the same test as everyone else: what did they do in the past 12 months that they hadn't done before? Another location of a proven concept, however well run, didn't clear the bar. A new format, a new kind of market or a real reinvention did. That's why Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten are here. Boulud folded three Lincoln Center restaurants into Brasserie Boulud, his first brasserie in New York, and took Tiffany & Co.'s Blue Box Café to California. Vongerichten merged his three Flatiron restaurants into ABC Kitchens, a format built to travel, and brought it to Dumbo for his first restaurant in Brooklyn, with Kuala Lumpur opening later this month. Houston, Texas and Vancouver will be next.

Some of the most consequential players rarely appear on a menu. Johann Moonesinghe and Andrew Harris have raised more than $1.2 billion for inKind, which finances restaurants and steers diners to more than 10,000 of them through its rewards app. Moonesinghe’s RDM Hospitality also launched the Guest House at Turn 20 for Austin’s Formula 1 race.

At the top, nobody does just one thing. Shake Shack, which Danny Meyer founded, signed a licensing deal for South America. Meyer’s private-equity fund put $17 million into the workforce platform Shake Shack runs on, and he leased a prime space in Brooklyn Heights’ former Hotel Bossert for Union Square Hospitality Group’s first sit-down restaurant in the borough. Meyer also published a business book. Major Food Group continues to run impossible-to-book restaurants and private clubs while betting big on jarred sauce and branching out into real estate and branded residences. Tao Group Hospitality plays to the masses with its expanded Omnia in Las Vegas and to the few at the members-only part of  Crane Club. Exclusivity and accessibility are not competing strategies for the industry’s most powerful operators. 

The best brands also travel well beyond the room. David Grutman’s year included a bestselling book, a Netflix series and a turn in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show. Sarri Harper reopened Carnegie Deli on Seventh Avenue in September, though in a sense it never left. She kept the pastrami moving through nationwide shipping and stands at Madison Square Garden and the Belmont Stakes.

The four walls are where influence starts. This list measures how far it travels. 

The Most Influential Leaders in Nightlife & Dining

1. Rich Torrisi, Jeff Zalaznick & Mario Carbone

2. Tilman J. Fertitta

4. Jean-Georges Vongerichten & Lois Freedman

5. Junghyun & Ellia Park

10. Johann Moonesinghe & Andrew Harris

11. Noah Tepperberg & Jason Strauss

14. Chintan Pandya, Roni Mazumdar & Vijay Kumar

15. Josh Pickard, Andrew Carmellini & Luke Ostrom

20. John Terzian & Brian Toll

24. Evgeny Kuzin & Izu Ani

25. Matthew Glaser & Michael Francesconi

26. Ankur Jain & Sam Bakhshandehpour

29. Fidel Caballero & Sofia Ostos

31. Aaron Bludorn, Cherif Mbodji & Victoria Pappas-Bludorn

36. Linden Pride & Nathalie Hudson

37. Marc Rose & Med Abrous

38. Jihan Lee & Takahiro Sakaeda

40. David Yun, Steve Choi & Yong Min Kim

41. Alex Pincus & Miles Pincus

44. Margarita Kallas-Lee & Phillip Frankland Lee

45. Chris & Harris Pappas

48. Kim Canteenwalla & Elizabeth Blau

49. Andrew Lustgarten

1. Rich Torrisi, Jeff Zalaznick & Mario Carbone

Co-Founders | Major Food Group

Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick served more than 3.2 million guests in 2025. Their Carbone Fine Food line did $101.3 million in sales last year, up 76.9 percent, and is now stocked in nearly 30,000 stores across all 50 states. “A restaurant can only welcome so many guests in a night, while our sauces can reach millions of people who may never have the opportunity to dine with us,” Carbone told Observer.They also took Major Food Group into three new countries. They opened Carbone in London last September and Dubai last October. This April, in Cartagena, Colombia, they opened The Grand Grill steakhouse and Bar Lelarge inside the Four Seasons’ Club Cartagena, a 1920s beaux-arts landmark—the group’s first concepts in South America. The Santo Domingo family invited them into the hotel, Zalaznick told Observer, and Bar Lelarge works lulo, mango and Colombian coffee into its cocktails. In June, they announced a deal with hoteliers Ira Drukier and Richard Born for an American tavern and steakhouse in the former Tribeca Grill space at 375 Greenwich Street, slated for 2027. It’s the latest in a run of storied New York rooms, after The Grill in the Seagram Building and the original Carbone at the former location of Rocco in NoHo. “When you take over a place with that kind of legacy, there’s a responsibility to honor what came before while creating something that feels entirely new,” Torrisi told Observer.Demand is steepest in New York. Torrisi and Carbone, which release tables 30 days out, remain the hardest to book, according to the company. Carbone and Torrisi met in culinary school and were roommates before they opened their first restaurant. “When we opened Torrisi, we had very little money, but we had a clear point of view about the kind of food we wanted to make,” Torrisi said. The partners are also building beyond restaurants: branded residences at Terra’s Villa Miami, a project in West Palm Beach with Stephen Ross, a redevelopment of Nikki Beach in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood with the Boucher Brothers, and, with Palm Tree Crew and 8K Capital, the purchase and redevelopment of River Valley Ranch in Aspen, Colo. Zalaznick, who leads the group’s business, real estate, partnerships and global expansion, said the partners spent more than a year finding the original Carbone’s location. “We’ve never believed in forcing a concept into a location simply because it’s available,” he said.

2. Tilman J. Fertitta

Owner, Fertitta Entertainment; U.S. Ambassador to Italy and San Marino

In May, Tilman Fertitta agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment for about $17.6 billion, including roughly $11.9 billion in assumed debt. Shareholders approved the deal on September 22, and it now awaits FTC and gaming approvals. Fertitta is also the largest single shareholder of Wynn Resorts. He has made those moves while serving as U.S. ambassador to Italy, with the executive team at Fertitta Entertainment in Houston leading the Caesars deal. “My focus is serving as Ambassador,” Fertitta told Observer. His great-grandfather emigrated from Italy in 1887, and Fertitta says the two jobs draw on the same skills: “Diplomacy and hospitality work hand-in-glove.”His restaurant portfolio, more than 60 concepts under Landry’s, is growing through acquisitions and openings. A Landry’s affiliate won the bankruptcy auction for Fireman Hospitality Group, whose nine restaurants include Café Fiorello and Bond 45, with a $22 million bid. Fireman had filed for Chapter 11 in August. Distressed restaurants have long been part of the strategy. “When companies get into trouble, it’s usually not because of the people in the restaurant,” Fertitta said. “It’s usually because of debt or poor leadership outside of the restaurant.”Fertitta has also agreed to buy Boston’s Union Oyster House, whose Italian American owner approached the family as stewards for its next hundred years. He has learned to wait for deals. “I am a patient buyer,” he said. “I waited years for Del Frisco’s, and I have found that if you wait long enough, the opportunity usually comes around again.” He opened Or’esh in SoHo in February, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Jacksonville, Fla., in March, and Landry’s Seafood House in Sugar Land, Texas, in August. In September, he opened Cafe Charmant with his Catch Hospitality Group partner Eugene Remm and chef Jake Tyler Brodsky. Fertitta saw in Remm someone who “knows how to make a guest feel like family instead of a customer.” “When you come across someone who is really great at what he does, you back him,” he said.Mastro’s in Atlanta is due in November, with Mastro’s in Weehawken, N.J., and Bubba Gump in Myrtle Beach, S.C., planned for 2027. In November, Fertitta and Remm will open The Corner Store at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, extending their partnership with MGM Resorts. Catch Hospitality Group, which also runs Or’esh and The Eighty Six, told Observer the move is an exception for an otherwise New York-centric concept.The expansion comes with contraction. Morton’s closed in West Palm Beach, Fla., in May, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse closed in Boston’s Back Bay in July, and Bubba Gump closed in Miami in August. Landry’s reports more than 600 properties in 36 states and more than 15 countries, and the company projects $4 billion in revenue for 2026.Fertitta is also directing capital toward Houston, where he owns the Rockets. Fertitta agreed in March to buy the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun for a record $300 million, with plans to revive the Houston Comets. It all traces back to Galveston, where he started as a teenager in his father’s seafood restaurant, peeling shrimp and clearing tables. “To this day, I am not too proud to pick up a piece of trash off the floor,” he said.

Union Square Hospitality Group

The burger stand Danny Meyer opened in Madison Square Park in 2004 now has more than 740 locations, about 265 of them outside the U.S. This month, Shake Shack, where Meyer is a director, recently added a location at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It also signed a licensing deal with Bold Hospitality Company, the Brazilian operator of Outback Steakhouse, for 40 Shake Shack locations in Brazil by 2036, beginning in São Paulo next year. Panama, with 12 planned, comes first. In May, a bullish Meyer bought about $2 million of Shake Shack stock.His capital reaches the tools restaurants run on, too. In May, Enlightened Hospitality Investments, the private-equity fund Meyer launched in 2017 with more than $200 million, put $17 million into Blink, a frontline-workforce app that Shake Shack now uses. Blink said it added more than 700,000 hospitality-sector users last year.At Union Square Hospitality Group, Meyer opened Pine Hall in Detroit in June, the group’s first Midwest restaurant, and has Ci Siamo and Daily Provisions in Boston and Daily Provisions in Bethesda, Md., due this quarter. In May, he leased 3,200 square feet on the ground floor of Brooklyn Heights’ former Hotel Bossert for USHG’s first full-service restaurant in the borough, due in late 2028. Marriott and developer SomeraRoad are converting the building into Ritz-Carlton Residences.In September, Meyer published What Could Possibly Go Right?: The Essential Journey to Scale an Enduring Culture, drawing on four decades of building restaurants and businesses.

4. Jean-Georges Vongerichten & Lois Freedman

Chef & Proprietor of Jean-Georges Restaurants | President & Co-CEO of Jean-Georges Management

Jean-Georges Vongerichten has spent five decades opening restaurants. What’s new is a format built to travel. ABC Kitchens folds his three Flatiron restaurants (the farm-to-table ABC Kitchen, the Latin-inspired ABC Cocina and the plant-based ABCV) into a single room. He first tried it at Maybourne’s Emory hotel in London in 2024. Last October, it came home to New York: ABC Kitchens Dumbo, a roughly 200-seat restaurant at 55 Water Street, became Vongerichten’s first in Brooklyn. In April, it reached Italy at the Airelles Palladio hotel on Venice’s Giudecca island. On October 30, it reaches Asia, as ABC Kitchens KL opens at the new Waldorf Astoria Kuala Lumpur alongside two more Vongerichten concepts, JG KL and The Bar by JG. Vongerichten has said Houston, Texas and then Vancouver are next.Closer to home, Vongerichten turned his former Spice Market in the Meatpacking District into Chez Margaux, a members-only club, where the New York Knicks celebrated after their championship parade. “I’ve always wanted to bring late-night dining back to New York,” Vongerichten told Observer. “I wanted to create a place where people could spend the whole night.” His alumni, meanwhile, keep opening rooms of their own. Fumio Yonezawa, a Jean-Georges sous chef from 2002 who helped open Jean-Georges Tokyo and later ran the No Code omakase counters in Tokyo and Taipei, opened Shinka in San Francisco in October.Turning all of this into a business falls to Lois Freedman, who runs Jean-Georges’ Management. Freedman met Vongerichten in 1986, when she took a job in the pastry department in his kitchen at Lafayette in the Drake Hotel before moving onto garde manger and eventually poissonier. Together, they opened JoJo in 1991, where she ran the front of house. Today she oversees a portfolio of more than 49 restaurants worldwide, from his Columbus Circle flagship to Jean-Georges at the Connaught in London. She oversees everything, soup-to-nuts. As ABC Kitchens spreads, she keeps each one tied to its city through what it sources. “Each city gives us the opportunity to work with different ingredients, including some we may not have access to in New York,” Freedman said.

5. Junghyun & Ellia Park

Founders, NA:EUN Hospitality

In June, Na:Eun Hospitality founders Junghyun Park (“JP”) and Ellia Park backed their longtime director of operations, Ahris Kim, in opening her first restaurant as an owner. Somssi, a 50-seat bistro at 79 MacDougal Street in the former Acru space, cooks American food through a Korean lens: linguine with mustard-kimchi ragù, mushrooms and curried rice. JP Park and the Naeun Hospitality team collaborate with Kim on the culinary direction. Kim joined Atoboy three months after it opened in 2016. “We always believed she had the potential to become a great restaurant owner,” the Parks told Observer.In July, the Parks marked Atoboy’s 10th anniversary with ATO10, a 300-guest party at Radio Park, the rooftop garden at Rockefeller Center. The night featured culinary collaborations with prominent local and international Korean chefs, including Dongsik Ok of Okdongsik, Hoyoung Kim of the Michelin-starred Jua, Taesung Kim of Pono Buono and Yongwook Yoo of Imok Smoke Dining. The celebration also included Atoboy’s collaboration with Nongshim for the 40th anniversary of Shin Ramyun, Korea’s best-known instant noodle. “Although our approaches are very different, we share the same ambition of bringing Korean food to a global audience,” the Parks said. When Atoboy opened, the Parks said, “we really didn’t know much about running a restaurant.” A decade on, the flavors, interior and pricing have all changed. The goal hasn’t: to “introduce Korean food from a new perspective.”Atomix, the NoMad tasting counter they opened in 2018, remains among the most decorated restaurants in America. It holds two Michelin stars and three stars from The New York Times, and this year it ranked No. 12 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and No. 7 on North America’s 50 Best. “We’ve never considered awards or rankings to be our ultimate goals,” the Parks said. “Rather than repeating past successes, we’re always thinking about what we can create next.” The Parks also run Naro in Rockefeller Center and oversee culinary direction in partnership with Hand Hospitality at Seoul Salon.They also founded The Nanro Foundation, which brings chefs working in the U.S. to Korea to see its traditional markets, farmers and artisans, along with its best-known restaurants. “If we can bring a few chefs to Korea every year and give them meaningful experiences, imagine the impact in 10 or 20 years,” the Parks said, noting that “the financial realities of operating a restaurant” in New York have made culinary experimentation increasingly difficult. They want New York to make room for that kind of ambition.

Founder | JK Hotel Group

Jeff Klein took San Vicente to both coasts this year. In New York, he converted the public spaces of the Jane Hotel into San Vicente West Village, keeping part of the building as a budget hotel. The main dining room, once a ballroom, has a live jazz band and singer every night. “When the singer wears a black dress and long white gloves, I feel as though I’m in New York in the 1930s,” Klein told Observer. In Los Angeles, he opened San Vicente Santa Monica, a $40 million, 21,000-square-foot club with an indoor-outdoor restaurant, a rooftop bar and a 50-seat screening room. Members of the original San Vicente Bungalows get a year of free access before upgrading to a global membership. Revenue grew 30 percent last year, according to the company.The model began with San Vicente Bungalows, which Klein opened in West Hollywood in 2018 after a $50 million renovation of the former San Vicente Inn. The club is known for covering members’ phone cameras with stickers, Klein’s idea, which drew pushback at first. The rule extends to talking about what happens inside: Klein said the club once ended a membership after a member’s guest leaked details of a private meeting. “To me, privacy has become the greatest luxury,” he said. Klein is now adding a pool and cabanas there, and has said more than 9,000 people are on its waiting list. An anonymous committee decides who gets in, looking for curiosity, humor and good manners. “Being wealthy doesn’t give you an advantage,” Klein said. Getting accepted, by his own account, is the hardest reservation in his portfolio.It all grew out of the Sunset Tower Hotel, which Klein bought in 2004 and still considers his flagship. “I never want to own a place that’s ‘hot,’” he said. “Hot places are hot for a few years, and then they’re not.” Walk-ins at its Tower Bar wait 30 minutes to an hour, longer on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and tables there are also available through Dorsia. Across the street from the Bungalows, he runs the boutique Hotel 850 SVB. Klein owns all of his real estate except in Santa Monica, which is on a long-term lease, and counts Ohana Real Estate Investors as his key partner.This year, Klein reportedly turned down an offer from DIAFA, the Abu Dhabi hospitality company tied to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to buy the Sunset Tower and the San Vicente clubs for $700 million, a figure DIAFA’s side disputes. A source close to Klein told The Hollywood Reporter that Klein knew folding them into a larger company would dilute what he had spent years building.

Partner | Catch Hospitality Group

Eugene Remm is taking The Corner Store outside New York for the first time. In November, he and partner Tilman Fertitta will open the SoHo restaurant at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, a project announced in January. Remm isn’t treating Vegas as the limit. “I wouldn’t say Las Vegas is the only place Corner Store will ever go,” he told Observer. “But as of right now, it’s our next stop.” In 2017, Remm partnered Catch Hospitality Group, his bicoastal, multi-market operation, with Fertitta’s privately owned Landry’s. “Despite everything he has going on, Tilman is always available whenever I need him, which continues to surprise me,” Remm said. “He’s taught me structure, scale, and how to operate a proper business for the long run.”Remm’s portfolio now includes Or’esh, The Eighty Six and Cafe Charmant. He opened The Eighty Six, a 35-seat steakhouse in the former Chumley’s space in the West Village, in September 2025. “We often feel like we’re the custodians of this property, not its creators,” Remm said. “There’s an undeniable energy you feel the moment you walk in, and our responsibility is to preserve and protect it.” In March, the World’s 101 Best Steak Restaurants ranked it No. 12 worldwide and No. 1 in North America. Or’esh, a Mediterranean restaurant with chef Nadav Greenberg, followed in SoHo in February, and Cafe Charmant, a coastal French restaurant, opened in the West Village on September 15. Another standalone New York concept is set for 9 West 57th Street in 2027. “I think the world wants smaller spaces, more intimate experiences,” Remm told Observer earlier this year. “That’s where we’re at.” He came to that view by living in the city and watching how people’s dining habits changed, and by doing the math: building large-format restaurants, he said, “has also become incredibly challenging.” “We had to rethink our approach, moving from tables of eight, 10 and 12 celebrating birthdays and big occasions to more intimate groups of two and four focused on food and conversation,” Remm said. “That also meant completely rethinking how we manage the reservation book to maximize a smaller space.”The group, which runs seven Catch locations across the U.S., marked the 15th anniversary of its Meatpacking District flagship this year with a renovation and new food and beverage programs.The Eighty Six, The Corner Store and Or’esh are among the hardest restaurant bookings in New York, with long waits that began even before they opened, and they have drawn celebrities including Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. Asked whether that comes down to the room, the food or something that can’t be engineered, Remm said: “All of it. The room, the food, and the magic that happens when you create special experiences and make people feel genuinely special.”

Founder & CEO | Gracious Hospitality Management

In April, Simon Kim opened 550 Madison, a 15,000-square-foot, multi-level dining destination in Philip Johnson’s former Sony building in Midtown. It brings together Cote 550, his second Cote in New York, and Bar Chimera, a new concept with three separate bars for wine, whiskey and martinis. Kim’s favorite is the martini bar, which took a year of development. “We spent a year researching and developing the perfect martini, tasting hundreds of waters and working with chemists and a local ice maker to get the mineral content and pH exactly right,” Kim told Observer. That ice maker, in Queens, delivers custom ice every day. Nas is a partner in the project. The two met when Nas came into Cote soon after it opened. “What I love about Nas is that he keeps it real,” Kim said. “He’s never lost touch with who he is.” Kim is expanding further in New York with Sushi Yoshitake, due later this year on the mezzanine of 550 Madison. It’s the debut New York restaurant from three-Michelin-starred Tokyo chef Masahiro Yoshitake, bringing his omakase to North America for the first time. “His dream was to come to New York, and my dream was to bring the greatest sushi chef to New York,” Kim said.Kim’s Cote Korean Steakhouse, which blends Korean barbecue with an American steakhouse, earned a Michelin star at its Flatiron flagship within its first year. His first restaurant, Piora, was Italian; with Cote, he turned to the food he grew up with. “It wasn’t about whether Korean food was in fashion,” he said. “It was about staying true to myself and my story.” Since opening in 2017, the flagship has been the foundation for the brand’s expansion to Miami in 2021, Singapore in 2024 and Las Vegas, where Kim opened at the Venetian in October 2025. Reservations at Cote open 30 days in advance at 10 a.m., and the restaurant also books through Dorsia.Another notable restaurant in Kim’s group is Coqodaq, an upscale fried-chicken concept, gluten-free and fried without seed oils, paired with Champagne and caviar. “I believe in the power of ‘and,’” Kim said. “Taste and health can coexist, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice one for the other.” Coqodaq and its casual offshoot, CQDQ, returned to the U.S. Open for a third consecutive year, where Kim also debuted Kimbap, a stall selling gimbap, the Korean rice rolls traditionally filled with vegetables and meat. “Honestly, I was nervous,” he said of bringing such a personal dish to the Open. The stall sold more than 1,500 gimbap a day. His food also appeared at Formula 1 in Miami and Las Vegas and in a Coqodaq collaboration with Lucky Cat in London.

Chef & Owner | Tatiana, Dōgon and Maroon

In May, Kwame Onwuachi took his cooking west for the first time, opening Maroon, an Afro-Caribbean steakhouse, at Sahara Las Vegas. The restaurant is named for the enslaved Africans who escaped into Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. “The story of the Maroons is one of resilience, freedom and preserving culture, and that’s something worth celebrating anywhere,” Onwuachi told Observer. The menu draws on his Jamaican and Caribbean roots and on the mix of cuisines he grew up around in the Bronx. By September, Clark County had handed Onwuachi a ceremonial key to the Las Vegas Strip. Maroon is his third restaurant with architecture firm Modellus Novus, after Tatiana at Lincoln Center and Dōgon at Washington’s Salamander Hotel. Both Tatiana and Dōgon made North America’s 50 Best Restaurants list this year: Dōgon at No. 37, and Tatiana as a new entry at No. 39. Tatiana, which The New York Times twice named New York’s best restaurant, remains one of the hardest tables in the city to book. Washingtonian ranked Dōgon No. 8 on its 2026 list of D.C.’s 100 Very Best Restaurants.His food also reaches well past his dining rooms. Patty Palace by Chef Kwame serves patties at Citi Field and Barclays Center. In September, Onwuachi published his second cookbook, All Hours: Crazy Good Food for Whatever, Whenever. He launched it at Lincoln Center by hosting a one-night, Resy-presented late-night talk show, with guests and live cooking, then took it on a national tour that included a sold-out dinner at Maroon. “Food has always been about more than what’s on the plate for me,” he said. “It’s about storytelling, culture, music and bringing people together.” He has also moved back to Los Angeles, partly to be closer to Las Vegas. “Most importantly, being in L.A. gives me the opportunity to spend more quality time with my family,” he said.

10. Johann Moonesinghe & Andrew Harris

Co-Founder & CEO and Co-Founder & Chief Risk Officer | inKind

In August, Johann Moonesinghe and Andrew Harris closed $414 million in financing for inKind, led by Citi and Cross River, bringing the company’s total capital raised to more than $1.2 billion. The round followed more than $320 million from Liberty Mutual Investments in July and a $450 million equity and debt round led by Magnetar Capital in February. They plan to deploy the capital to restaurants on the platform over the next year.The Austin, Texas-based platform now connects more than 5 million customers with more than 10,000 restaurants, bars and cafes, more than double the count of a year earlier, in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Miami. The model gives the founders influence over both restaurant funding and where customers dine. Inkind provides capital in exchange for food and beverage credit, with no loan repayments to a bank and no equity stake for an investor, then sells that credit to diners through its app, which offers up to 20 percent back at participating restaurants. The company counts Mina Group, José Andrés Group and Metallica among its partners and investors. InKind has deployed over $1 billion to restaurants on its platform.Their customer acquisition extends to live entertainment. InKind is the official dining sponsor of Metallica’s “Life Burns Faster” residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, running October 1 through October 29 with additional shows in early 2027, and publishes restaurant recommendations around Formula 1 in Austin. Moonesinghe also owns RDM, the hospitality group behind Guest House at Turn 20, the VIP restaurant at Austin’s Formula 1 race in October. RDM, led by Raj Kumar, is expanding into Aspen and Dallas.

11. Noah Tepperberg & Jason Strauss

Co-CEOs, Tao Group Hospitality

Noah Tepperberg and Jason Strauss led Tao Group Hospitality’s expansion of Omnia at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to more than 120,000 square feet with Omnia Dayclub, which debuted in May. It’s Tao Group Hospitality’s largest ground-up development to date and draws on the beach clubs of Mykonos and Ibiza. At the opening, bottle service arrived by tiny boats while a Trojan horse paraded through the crowd. An even bigger entrance was considered: skydivers landing in the pool, an idea the FAA rejected “before I had the chance to even say no,” Tepperberg told Observer. The partners have also adapted to how Las Vegas now goes out. Social media lets guests see what’s happening at every venue on the Strip in real time, so they bounce around more, Strauss said, and Tao now sells a single pass that gets guests into five or six of its venues in one night.The past year marked a significant period of expansion and reinvention for the partners in their two most important markets, New York and Las Vegas. At Edge, atop 30 Hudson Yards, they reintroduced a 101st-floor restaurant space as Peak with Priceless and brought back Avenue, the........

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