NEW YORK, Oct. 3, 2018 — sbe, the leading lifestyle hospitality company that develops, manages and operates award-winning hotels, residences, restaurants and nightclubs, announced the appointment of Emily Leveen-Aguilar as Vice President of Food & Beverage at its Miami and Caribbean venues.
Emily will oversee the lifestyle food and beverage and all of sbe's hotels in greater Miami and The Bahamas and work closely with the area and hotel operations general managers to re-instill the essence and culture of each brand element which is so important to all of sbe's venues.
Sam Nazarian, sbe Founder and CEO, stated: "Emily is a seasoned veteran in the field of food and beverage and has built her career on running, opening and creating restaurants and restaurant brands – we're hugely excited to bring her on at a leadership level at sbe. We're currently going through an unprecedented period of global growth and we're thrilled that we now have Emily's expertise on-board to support our continuously rapid expansion and overall global company strategy."
Emily Leveen-Aguilar, said of her new appointment: "I've worked with many amazing chefs over the course of my career and the culinary offering from sbe's iconic restaurant brands, spearheaded by Sam Nazarian, has always impressed and interested me. I am excited to be reunited with and work alongside Martin Heierling, sbe's Chief Culinary Officer, to develop new and exciting concepts that our guests across Miami and the Bahamas will love."
Hiring Emily highlights the importance of the region to sbe where it has a spectacular portfolio of eleven hotels and residences in the area including the sold-out SLS Lux Brickell which opened this summer, the Delano hotel, SLS South Beach and the newly opened Hyde Hotel and Residence Midtown.
As well as food and beverage at sbe's Miami hotels, Leveen-Aguilar will be responsible for sbe's culinary offering in The Bahamas, home to sbe's SLS Baha Mar.
SLS Baha Mar is one of sbe's most relevant properties in terms of venues, and will boast ten irresistible culinary and nightlife concepts by the end of 2018 with the opening of Carna, Umami and Skybar joining the award-winning Cleo, Fi'lia and Katsuya venues.
Emily will work in close collaboration with Martin Heierling, sbe's Chief Culinary Officer, on evolving the food and beverage offering at over 30 restaurant and club venues in Miami and The Bahamas and support Martin as he develops new food and beverage concepts across sbe's properties.
Emily will report directly into Sam Nazarian, Chairman and CEO of sbe.
Emily joins at a time when sbe is going through a period of rapid expansion with plans to more than double its hotel portfolio to 50 hotels and residences by 2021. This includes deals in new territories in Latin America. sbe also opened its first hotel in the Middle East – Mondrian Doha – at the end of last year with more planned, including two further properties in Dubai – Mondrian and Delano – an SLS in Doha in 2019, and Hyde Doha in 2020 to mention a few.
Before joining sbe, Emily spent 13 years with Starr Restaurants where she began managing Morimoto in Philadelphia becoming the General Manager for five and half years. Emily moved to Miami at the end of 2010 to open Stephen Starr's first Miami restaurant in the Bal Harbour Shops, Makoto, from the beginning of construction to opening day. In 2014, Emily became Director of Restaurants to oversee all future Starr Restaurants in Miami. Working alongside owner, Stephen Starr, and the rest of the Executive team, Emily opened Continental Miami, Le Zoo, and Upland Miami.
