Virgin Hotels, the lifestyle hotel brand by Richard Branson, welcomes Christian Plotczyk as the new Vice President of Food + Beverage. Plotczyk oversees all culinary operations across the brand and brings with him a broad history of experience. He will immediately begin working on the next Virgin Hotels in the pipeline: Nashville, Palm Springs, Dallas and New York.
Raul Leal, CEO of Virgin Hotels, commented, “Food and Beverage is a strategic part of our growth plan as we continue to create diverse and entertaining venues for our consumers. Christian will bring a fresh perspective to all of our concepts across the board. We’ve already started to see his influence in Chicago in The Commons Club, Miss Ricky’s and Cerise. We’re excited to see what he’ll bring to the table as we continue to grow the Virgin Hotels brand.”
Working closely with the team on the ground at Virgin Hotels Chicago and with the development teams in New York, Nashville, Dallas and Palm Springs, Plotczyk will drive the thought process behind room service and all new restaurants, bars and clubs, as well as create new programming in existing spaces like Virgin’s flagship outlet, The Commons Club.
“We always want everyone to leave feeling better than when they came,” said Plotczyk. “As Virgin Hotels continues to expand, I’m really looking forward to creating these awesome spaces in which guests and locals can gather, eat, drink and have a great time.”
Plotczyk spent six years as the Vice President of Culinary + Operations for Rosa Mexicano Restaurants before moving over to The One Group Hospitality/STK Restaurants, overseeing all aspects of employee training, menu development and culinary control systems. His experience working with hotels includes concept development for Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants. Plotczyk graduated from Boston College and started his career in the kitchen as executive chef for a number of restaurants before making the transition to consulting and development.
Virgin Hotels Chicago is now open and accepting reservations at virginhotels.com, with Nashville slated for 2017 and New York 2018. Virgin Hotels continues to explore hotel and office conversions as well as ground-up development in cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC and London.
