In 1989, Vanity Fair referred to McNally as the "undisputed King Midas of downtown eateries for nearly a decade.
[1] After leaving school at the age of 16, he moved to Amsterdam and sold English-magazine subscriptions before returning to London and working as a busboy in Chelsea.
[2][1] In 1969, he left England to travel around the world and he settled in New York City in 1976, where his brother, Keith McNally, worked as a waiter at One Fifth in Greenwich Village.
[6] In 1984, McNally and music producer John Loeffler transformed Lady Astor's into Indochine, a French-Vietnamese restaurant that they opened at 430 Lafayette St in NoHo, Manhattan.
[18] In 1995, McNally and singer Madonna opened the Blue Door at Delano in Miami Beach, Florida.
[21] He was a partner in the Bryant Park Hotel in New York and the Shore Club in Miami Beach before pulling out of both.