Morgans Hotels Teams with Vice for Celebrity-Led Dinner Parties

Morgans Hotel Group today announced a creative new partnership with Vice Media’s food channel Munchies, which will bring a communal one-time-only “Dinner Party” to Morgans’ properties in New York, London, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco throughout the next year.

The first series of the Dinner Party falls under the theme “Exchange Students” and will be led by chefs recognized for their mastery of a certain region’s or culture’s cuisine. The Munchies team played a significant role in the curation of the events and selected its favorite chefs, many of which were featured in their Chef's Night Out series, to join the event.

Andy Ricker, founder of Pok Pok and a Thai cuisine connoisseur, will be the star of the first event to be held next month at the Mondrian Los Angeles.

Morgans CMO Alan Philips says the hotel brand had been in talks with Vice for some time to create a partnership based on their similar values.

"We’ve both founded our business on looking at the world by looking through a different lens,” Philips says.

Morgans’ partnership with Vice gives the hotel group access to this globally recognized stable of chefs as well as Vice’s 5.5 million YouTube subscribers. Vice’s primary viewers falls into the 18- to 34-year old age group, which also happens to be the next generation of lifestyle hotel customers in Morgans’ eyes.

Philips hopes the new programming will differentiate Morgans as it and other brands are placing more importance on community and design.

"The modern hotel guest is looking for something different, something special. It used to be all about the hardware and people came to our properties because of the design. Now everyone has design," Philips says.

"You differentiate today through programming, through activating our public spaces. It’s better software and what better way to do that than partner with the hottest media brand in the world?”

Vice, on the other-hand, is given another opportunity to bring its online entertainment to life in major U.S. cities.