First Take: Inside Arq by The Leela, the Members-Only Club Layered in Indian Craft and Quiet Opulence

At a time when luxury hospitality in India often equates excess with opulence, Arq by The Leela takes a more nuanced approach. The new members-only concept from The Leela isn’t interested in replicating the old business club formula. Instead, it positions itself as a luxury lifestyle club — a space where boardroom meetings, curated wine dinners, cigars, high tea rituals, and late-night DJ takeovers coexist under one richly layered roof. “With Arq By The Leela, our ambition was never simply to create another members’ club,” says Anuraag Bhatnagar, CEO, The Leela Palaces, Hotels, and Resorts. “It was to establish a new kind of belonging, one that reflects the full breadth of what the brand stands for, distilled into its most intimate and considered form.” 

Creating A New Benchmark With Arq

Traditional clubs tend to fall into familiar categories: Aggressively corporate or performatively casual. Arq positions itself somewhere in between—a sanctuary for India’s increasingly global luxury consumer who wants both business utility and cultural immersion. A place where one might host a board meeting at noon, retreat to the cigar diwan over single malts by evening, and end the night at a bar takeover beneath straw marquetry panels inspired by the rising sun.

What elevates Arq beyond another polished hospitality concept is its refusal to imitate the Western members’ club template wholesale. The design language remains firmly rooted in India, albeit interpreted through a deeply contemporary lens. The first Arq space I encountered was at The Leela Palace Bengaluru — home of the very first Arq by The Leela — and what stayed with me was not simply the richness of the interiors, but the coherence of the journey. Every room appeared to operate as part of a larger design language. The result is a club that feels unapologetically cinematic in its storytelling. The same language is followed at the latest Arq at Delhi, albeit with a different core theme — interpreted as the regal grace of a peacock.

The New Opening

Rather than creating replicas, each Arq lounge is shaped by its city — a framework developed in collaboration with the globally recognised design studio AvroKO. “The Delhi outpost, for instance, draws on the idea of ‘A Camouflage of Opulence’, using layered textures, concealed details, and peacock symbolism to create an atmosphere that reveals itself slowly. Bengaluru embraces evocative hues and avant-garde Indian arts with bold colours, sculptural forms, and fantastical brass installations. For Chennai, meanwhile, work is underway on references based on the Coromandel Coast, classical dance forms, and Chettinad heritage through softer forms and fluid materiality,” explains Kesaté B. Tadesse, principal and managing director, AvroKO.

Coming to Delhi, you’ll find a teal embroidered wallpaper here, a curved mosaic peacock there, beaten brass catching selective light, blue sodalite tables gleaming beneath K9 crystal chandeliers. One moment, you are in the Sanctum, an elegant tea and coffee room, equipped with Scanomat coffee machines, and designed for quiet conversations and high tea rituals. Next, you move into the Reading Room, lined with over 350 books across genres, its subdued palette softened by peacock motifs and warm wooden detailing. Elsewhere, a private cellar and dining room seats 10 around a Versace-inspired layout, complete with a dramatic Pichhwai artwork anchored by peacocks and a menu designed specifically around wine pairings.

Wine, unsurprisingly, is central to the Arq experience. The cellar reportedly houses over 250 private labels, including rare champagnes and small-batch vintages, some also available by the glass. The culinary programme leans global with Asian influences, allowing members to pair wines across cuisines rather than remain confined to traditional European formats.

Then there are the quieter luxuries: A discreet private elevator for incognito arrivals, dimmed and selective lighting that shifts the mood across the day, cigar lounges fitted with humidors, semi-precious stone inlays, straw marquetry panels inspired by rising suns and even hidden televisions concealed beneath artwork in private dining spaces.

Power of the Membership

This is not merely a hospitality extension or a networking space. Membership is deliberately stringent, involving multiple stages of filtration and profiling, with final approvals reportedly resting at the CEO level. “Rather than offering access to everyone, Arq is built on the principle of intentional exclusivity, a space where membership reflects sensibility as much as status,” shares Bhatnagar. “The most interesting clubs in the world derive their character from the people inside them, and we are building toward that organically.”

According to him, there is a quieter challenge embedded in Arq By The Leela’s design and programming: The idea that true luxury is not loud. “It is felt in the calibre of the person sitting across from you, in the precision of a detail most people would never notice, in the ease with which an exceptional experience unfolds without visible effort,” he states.

The privileges extend beyond the walls of the club: Hotel upgrades through GHA alliance partnerships, preferential pricing, open credit tabs, curated global experiences, and access designed to travel with the member. “We envision a world where an Arq By The Leela membership travels with you, opening doors in cities far beyond where a Leela property sits today, through carefully chosen affiliations that meet the same standard we hold ourselves to,” Bhatnagar concludes.