Chatwal left India in 1967 for
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to work for the country's commercial airliner. When he arrived he was told he would be required to take off his turban, cut his hair, and remove his beard. He declined due to his
Sikh heritage. In 1975, he left the country with some of his savings and opened a restaurant in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In 1979, he opened Bombay Palace, the first fine-dining Indian restaurant in
Midtown Manhattan. Chatwal expanded Bombay Palace internationally, opening restaurants in
London,
Hong Kong, and Canada, and eventually becoming a publicly traded company. He continued to acquire hotels, adding properties in
Florida in 1980 and
New York in 1982. He later combined all his properties into Hampshire Hotels & Resorts. He suffered from the real estate crisis in the 1990s and was forced to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was then he began to bring in investors as partners and focused on lifestyle branding of hotels, opening properties in New York,
Los Angeles, and internationally. Chatwal was close to former US President
Bill Clinton and his family, and made substantial financial donations to his election campaigns, as well as to other causes and campaigns of the
Democratic Party, engaging prominent representatives of the party. He has accompanied the Clintons on journeys to India, and was a Trustee of the
William J. Clinton Foundation. In April 2014, he pled guilty to giving illegal campaign contributions to three federal candidates, including Clinton, between 2007 and 2011. Hampshire Hotels & Resorts rebranded in 2015 to Dream Hotel Group. Chatwal remained as the chairman of the board and a new CEO was appointed to the group ==Personal life==