WESTPORT – When guests arrive at Delamar Hotels’ newly opened location in Westport, the first thing they might notice is a van wrapped in fashion sketches by Westport resident and “Project Runway” winner Christian Siriano.
Siriano’s work is one of the key elements of the Delamar Westport, the latest and fifth Connecticut hotel to open under the Delamar Hotel Collection. The company also opened the Delamar Mystic along the coast in February.
The Delamar Westport stands in the former location of the Westport Inn at 1595 Post Road East. Westport’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved the site plan for the hotel in 2022, and Siriano’s partnership with the hotel was announced in 2024.
An exterior view of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
Siriano told CT Insider in 2024 he wanted to take on the project because he has been a regular at Delamar Southport since he moved to Westport in 2020.
“When the idea of a collab with the Delamar popped up, I couldn’t miss it,” he said in 2024. “I also have stayed in so many hotels around the world, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to design for a new hotel.”
The fashion and interior designer’s experience staying in hotels inspired his designs for Delamar Westport, and he wanted to create spaces that did not feel “cold and not corporate.”
“It’s a home away from home,” Siriano said. “I’ve been in hotels all over the world and we wanted this one to feel very unique.”
When guests enter the hotel, they are immediately greeted by Siriano’s work in the lobby.
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
“We wanted the lobby to feel really cozy, like people would feel like they’re at their own home,” Siriano said. “We used a lot of fabrics and textures and layers … kind of like how I would approach a collection for fashion.”
The lobby contains fabrics from Italy and France, vintage pieces from Paris and sculptures from London, but Siriano grounds the outsourced materials with artwork from local Connecticut artists and custom furniture designed by Norwalk-based Kostas Upholstery.
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
“We wanted that to be very important, that all the artists that I put in the rooms or in the hotel were kind of local artists and some of my work,” Siriano said.
Siriano’s work also is showcased in the Delamar Westport’s lobby, with a wall of Siriano’s fashion sketches – which he calls “the Siriano sketch wall” – to add something “whimsical” to the space, he said. The fashion sketches also are seen on the Delamar Westport’s van parked outside the hotel and on the hotel’s door hanger signs for each room.
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
In addition to the lobby, Siriano designed three rooms called the “Siriano Suites” for the Westport hotel. The suites, which Siriano said showcase “a modern take on Connecticut living,” are all designed differently with unique pieces.
The biggest room of the suites is a 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom presidential suite on the third floor of the hotel. Guests open the door to find a living area with a couch and a green island made of marble in a wide kitchen space.
Fashion designer Christian Siriano poses in the suite he designed during a tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
“We just wanted it to feel like a home, so you feel like this isn’t really like a hotel room,” Siriano said.
Like the lobby, the presidential suite features fabrics from around the world, custom furniture and wallpaper with Siriano’s designs in the suite’s powder room.
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
The presidential suite also includes large walk-in closets, an in-suite washer and dryer, and three full bathrooms and a half-bath.
There are two other smaller rooms designed by Siriano on the second floor, which also include custom furniture and rugs, artwork from Siriano and local artists, and balconies. One of the rooms features photos of fashion textiles, which Siriano included as a nod to his fashion design and “bridge both worlds” of his work.
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
“Instead of one person, you try to be as open to as many different types of people,” Siriano said. “You would want lots of people to feel comfortable here. I’m a very feminine, romantic clothing designer, but I wanted my rooms to feel a bit more like lots of different types of people could stay in them. They’re not really masculine, they’re not really feminine. They’re kind of in between. They’re modern and interesting, but also have timeless elements.”
Siriano said he wants people to feel like they’ve “traveled somewhere” while they’re staying in his rooms.
“At the end of the day, we are still in Connecticut, but you want to be like you’re somewhere else,” he said. “I like hotel rooms that feel like you’re in another world, you know. I think it’s very important.”
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
In addition to the more than 80 rooms inside the Delamar Westport, a new restaurant inside the hotel is open for both guests and nonguests to enjoy. The Dandelion is part of the GHG Restaurant Collection, the team behind the Artisan in Southport, West Hartford and Traverse City, Mich.; La Plage in Westport, and Mystic and L’Escale in Greenwich.
Dandelion, a restaurant that operates independently of Delamar Westport, in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
Corporate chef and partner Frederic Kieffer said that for its latest and third restaurant concept, the team wanted to highlight the cuisine of the Mediterranean seaboard.
“The Dandelion concept is a little bit more urban,” Kieffer said. “It’s very modern because a lot of people are trying to pay attention more to what they’re eating, the sourcing, the seasonality, the carbon footprint, the sustainability. So the Mediterranean cuisine is very much all of that.”
Kieffer said he and Hicham Amaaou, the corporate director of restaurants at GHG Restaurant Collection, wanted to call the restaurant Dandelion because it is “one of the most commonly used and consumed wild plants in the world,” especially in areas around the Mediterranean Sea and Asia.
The menu is split into three sections: house specialities, starters and entrées. Dandelion’s menu contains dishes inspired by Mediterranean flavors, such as dandelion spanikopita, grilled sardines in grape leaves, roasted sheftalia, zhoug-rubbed loin lamb chops and more.
Appetizers offered at Dandelion, a restaurant that operates independently of Delamar Westport, in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. Clockwise from left to right is Moroccan Cigars, Roasted Sheftalia and Dandelion Spanikopita. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
Kieffer said Dandelion has been in the works for three-and-a-half years, and his team repeatedly cooked and tried dishes for months before they finalized the menu.
“It’s an American restaurant in Westport, Connecticut, with a lot of Mediterranean flavor. … Mediterranean is a term that’s been abused. Everyone using olive oil and cooking a piece of branzino calls themselves Mediterranean. We really don’t do that,” Kieffer said. “We did a lot of homework to really try to understand what is our message. Any project that we have, we really want to be true to the concept.”
Each component of the restaurant was carefully selected to reflect the concept, from the drinks included in its bar, such as Lebanese wine, to the handmade plates from a pottery in Brooklyn, N.Y., Kieffer and Amaaou said. The dessert menu also was curated to showcase Mediterranean cuisine and includes dishes such as chocolate sesame mousse with tahini caramel, fig and almond cake with whipped feta and fig jam, and affogato made with Turkish coffee.
A view of the bar at Dandelion, a restaurant that operates independently of Delamar Westport, in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
“When people think Mediterranean, sometimes when you go off the beat with that, then it gets a bit too spicy,” Amaaou said. “This is very safe, subtle influences and flavors that are a lot more approachable to anybody. Anybody can come in and and enjoy anything on the menu.”
Delamar Hotels founder and CEO Charles Mallory, a Connecticut native, said it’s been “wonderful” to create hotels for people to stay in Connecticut. Mallory started in the hotel industry with Delamar Hotels’ first location in Greenwich in 1999.
“It’s very exciting for me to do this in Connecticut because my family has been here for a very long time, and I’ve grown up and lived here most of my life,” Mallory said. “It’s a wonderful place to be, so it’s great to be able to create these places in Connecticut with a view of making a brand that will be recognized for excellence, not just in Connecticut, but beyond.”
Charles Mallory, founder of Delamar Hotel Collection, speaks with Hearst Connecticut Media during a tour of Delamar Westport in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
Mallory said that he and his company decided to acquire the former Westport Inn location based off the success of Delamar Southport, which is just a mile away from the Delamar Westport.
“We just thought that if someone could turn around this (inn) that was lagging, that we can make it work,” Mallory said. “Westport is a very affluent town with a vibrant community of not just businesses, but also there’s lots of young families who would have visitors and have reasons for events.”
A tour of the interior of the Delamar Westport is held with fashion designer Christian Siriano in Westport, Conn., on Wednesday October 8, 2025. (Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media)
Mallory said the next location Delamar Hotels is eyeing is in Michigan. The company opened a hotel in Traverse City, Mich., in 2021. Other Connecticut areas Mallory has considered opening hotels in include the Northwest Corner near Lime Rock Park in Salisbury or New Haven.
“We don’t grow for the sake of growing,” Mallory said. “It really needs to be something that just makes sense and is organically the right move to make.”
The Delamar Westport is now open and available for booking on its website. Dandelion also is open to the public for dining.
This article originally published at Explore the new Delamar Westport, featuring Christian Siriano-designed suites, Mediterranean food.
Dining and Cooking