Robin Birley’s plot for a British invasion of New York City’s nightlife scene just took a major step forward.

The London club king – a posh pal of Prime Minister Boris Johnson whose 5 Hertford St. in London is where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had their first date – has finally signed a lease for his long-awaited Big Apple dining club on the Upper East Side, Side Dish has learned.

The two-story, 12,000-square-foot space occupies the first floor and mezzanine at 828 Madison Ave., the luxury condo tower between East 69th and East 70th Streets formerly known as the Westbury Hotel, according to sources close to the deal.

Slated to open next year, the private supper club helmed by Birley — who was famously mauled by a tiger as a child, disfiguring the right side of his face — has signed a 20-year lease with an option to extend to 30 years, according to insiders briefed on the terms. 

The New York club will be open for breakfast until late night — whatever the community board deems fit for the residential neighborhood, sources said, adding that the club still must file for permits and community board approvals. 

Birley was repped by Robin Zendell, of Robin Zendell & Associates. 

Birley is known for founding his own slate of exclusive Mayfair, London clubs– 5 Hertford St., its downstairs club Loulou’s, and Oswald’s — where British, Middle Eastern and rock royals mix with Hollywood stars and where Conservative Party donors gain access to British cabinet members. 

In addition to hosting Harry and Meghan’s historic date, 5H is where British foreign minister Liz Truss took US trade envoy Katherine Tai out for a boozy $3500 lunch — on the British taxpayers’ dime. (Birley cut the bill in half if it could be paid right away.)  

Insiders speculated that the New York supper club will supposedly be less about access to America’s political elite, hedge funds and Hollywood and more about New York’s creative class.

Birley enjoys “curating” people, a source says, so members will be a mix of “best in class, people he likes — the best thinkers, artists, hedge funds, politicians and people who are beautiful inside and out,” a source said. “Other clubs have a ‘type.’ Robin never does.” 

Birley’s spokesperson said it is too early to reveal more. 

“New York has always been an aspiration of mine and of my father’s before me. New York is reviving and we are looking forward to being a part of that,” Birley told Side Dish by email, declining to elaborate. 

Birley’s late father, Mark Birley, opened the legendary Annabel’s club that was frequented by the Beatles. Mark Birley named the club after his wife, Robin’s mother, the socialite Lady Annabel Goldsmith.

While the dining club still doesn’t have a definitive name, it might be called Maxime’s, after Birley’s aunt Maxime Le Bailly, comtesse de La Failaise, a British model in the 1950s who became an “underground” film star in the 1960s. Birley has already named Loulou’s, in the basement of 5H, after his late cousin, Loulou de la Failaise. 

Birley also named his glam club Oswald’s after his grandfather, a famed British portraitist for British royalty. It’s where Amber Heard and her squad partied last July during Johnny Depp’s libel suit against London Sun.

Just like in London, Birley is backed in the New York deal by Reuben Brothers, a firm founded by David and Simon Reuben — London and Monaco-based brothers who made their fortune in the bloodypost-Soviet Russian metals trade of the 1990s. They now operate a significant transnational real estate empire. 

The Reubens bought the Westbury last year from Vornado Realty as part of a US expansion during the pandemic, as Side Dish reported exclusively.  The Reubens’ New York City investments are often spearheaded by David Reuben’s son, Jamie, who invested in Zero Bond, the private club in New York, and KYU, the Miami-based Asian BBQ restaurant that just opened its first outpost in New York. 

In London, Jamie Reuben is known as a super donor of British prime minister Boris Johnson. Jamie Reuben also made headlines for partnering with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, still under fire for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, to buy UK soccer team Newcastle United. Jamie is a 10% owner of the team while a Saudi sovereign wealth fund chaired by MBS owns 80%.