Robert De Niro’s New Nobu Hotel in the Caribbean Is Close to His Heart

It’s odd enough to find yourself traveling by helicopter from one Caribbean island to another for lunch, even if your destination is Nobu Barbuda, an outpost of the famous restaurant plunked down on a semi-deserted beach. It’s odd in a different way to arrive and spot the 81-year-old actor Robert De Niro dressed in a pair of shorts and a tiny bucket hat, waiting for you at a table in the back.

But this is his restaurant, and soon it will be his new resort, the Nobu Beach Inn, scheduled to open at the end of the year. Aimed at high-end travelers willing to part with upward of $2,500 a night for a one-bedroom bungalow, it’s the latest project in Mr. De Niro’s ever-expanding hospitality empire that began when he and a partner opened the Tribeca Grill in Manhattan in 1990.

In 1994, Mr. De Niro helped persuade the acclaimed Japanese chef Nobu Matsuhisa, whose Matsuhisa restaurant in Beverly Hills had become a celebrity favorite, to open a branch in Manhattan — and to bestow upon it his first rather than last name. More Nobu restaurants followed, and in 2013, the first Nobu Hotel opened at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Now Nobu Hospitality, comprising Mr. De Niro, Mr. Matsuhisa and the film producer Meir Teper, has an international portfolio of 42 hotels that are already open or are in development, as well as 12 residential developments and 56 restaurants. (Separately, Mr. De Niro is also a partner in the Greenwich Hotel in New York.)

But this current project is particularly close to Mr. De Niro’s heart, as well as being the only hotel in the Nobu empire in which he has a direct ownership stake, through an entity he co-founded, Paradise Found Barbuda LLC. (The other hotels operate under Nobu management and licensing agreements but are individually owned.) The Nobu Beach Inn is meant to be upscale yet homey, understated yet exclusive, geared toward the sort of people who “don’t want to feel that they’re surrounded by other people,” Daniel Shamoon, Paradise Found Barbuda’s managing partner, said.

How has Mr. De Niro found the time to do all this, in addition to his putative day job?

“Oh, that,” Mr. De Niro said, laughing, when asked how his acting career fits into this other part of his life. “I’ve done a few things that are going to come out, and I have other projects in the works that haven’t been finalized. And I also have this.” He gestured toward the beach. Being a hotel and restaurant mogul isn’t more fun than being an…