Secret Concierge

Gordon Ramsay may have just come off the worst year of his life but that doesn’t mean he is giving up on opening restaurants. He will be opening a new version of Petrus restaurant in the Belgravia area of London in September. His new place will be rather close to Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley where his former friend and protege who ran Petrus at London’s Berkeley Hotel has set up shop. Wareing has two Michelin stars for Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley.

Ramsay is hoping to bring new fame to the Petrus name, one of his known marquee brands. “Petrus is a cornerstone of the group and this stunning new site is the beginning of the next chapter in the life of this restaurant,” Ramsay said in an e-mailed statement seen on Bloomberg. The restaurant will serve modern French food like fillet of Angus beef with Swiss chard, wild mushrooms and red-wine sauce and baked line-caught sea bass with confit fennel and caviar sauce, a menu that Wareing called “familiar Gordon food” in a telephone interview quoted in the Bloomberg article.

Wareing says he wishes Ramsay the best of luck. The two have a long history, Ramsay was best man at Wareing’s wedding and he helped finance the original Petrus for Wareing but last year Wareing resigned from Gordon Ramsay Holdings. It also bears noting that Jean-Philippe Susilovic,Wareing’s maitre d’ for five years, will be director of the new restaurant. I’m guessing more volleys will be traded back in forth once Ramsay’s Petrus is closer to opening.

Chic fashion designer Rachel Roy will be the latest to have a more affordable version of her wares for sale. Jones Apparel Group Inc., which has a 50% stake in the designer has said that it is launching a contemporary line called Rachel Rachel Roy to be sold at Macy’s. The line will debut in August and will be priced at $59 to $299 for sportswear, $79 to $199 for shoes, up to $195 for jewelry, and as much as $109 for handbags. Jones has announced that the will also be lowering the prices on Rachel Roy’s luxury label by 15 to 20 percent.

JC Penney was also in the news this week with the announcement that they will be offering a new line of Joseph Abboud clothing called the Joe Joseph Abboud men’s clothing collection. JC Penney also recently launched a line with Charlotte Ronson.

The actress has apparently been voted the most beautiful woman in the world on an online poll by magazine Vanity Fair. Angelina Jolie came in first place with a staggering 58 percent of votes, while Gisele Bundchen scored second with 9 percent and Halle Berry third with 4 percent. The result maybe doesn’t come as that much of a shock to be honest. But if you exempt the name of the magazine, and consider the poll to be in reference to “on the planet” instead of “in the world”, you might ask yourself why Angelina Jolie won it. After all, maybe there is some undiscovered beauty in the South American rainforest that maybe surpasses all notions of what we might consider today as being “beautiful”. And after all, there is that old saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”… so what beholders beheld Vanity Fair’s site one must wonder.

Another beautiful home in Newport, Rhode Island has hit the market. I’ve had my eye on it since 2006 when the “summer cottage” designed by Richard Morris Hunt was in transition after the death of owner, Donald Tinney who had bought the home in 1956 for $25,000. Mrs. Tinney has vowed to preserve the home, a 65-room, 19th century castle that has been open for years for tours and private events and the couple had battled a long time to keep the home, waging a legal battle against a handyman that Ruth Tinney, Donald’s mother, had adopted after her husband’s death. The home was almost sold to Peter de Savary, the English businessman who developed Carnegie Abbey in Portsmouth but the deal fell through. The castle re-opened for tours at that time and like other homes in the area is rented out for weddings and events.

But now, as Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal’s Wealth Report reveals, the home is up for sale. The 60-room mansion was built in 1894 for Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, the youngest son of August Belmont, of Rothschild Banking fame. It is said to have cost $3 million to build a figure that Frank says is equal to about $75 million in today’s dollars. Belcourt Castle was used to display his collections of armor, medieval manuscripts and things related to Oliver Belmont’s love of horses (the Belmont Stakes horse race was named for his father). The entire first floor was composed of carriage space and a multitude of stables for Belmont’s prized horses. Belmont later married Alva Vanderbilt, the former wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt who converted the carriage room into a banquet hall and transformed a study into a boudoir. The house itself isn’t haunted but it is said that the Gothic ballroom has haunted chairs and a suit or armor that may also be haunted. It is listed for $7.2 million but it’s unlikely it will sell at that figure at least given what’s going on with other similar homes in the area.

A far more well-preserved example of Gilded Age decadence, the Astors home, Beechwood Manor in Newport has been on the market for two years and started at $16 million but is now listed at $12.9 million. Oakwood, another home with an Astor provenance hit the market for $10.75 million last year and has been reduced to $7.9 million. Hopedene on Newport’s famous Cliff Walk went on sale last year at $22.5 million and now sits at $19.5 million.

You’ll be hearing a lot about Swarovski watches lately as they just officially entered into the watch world with self-branded collection. Many of them are surprisingly quite nice. For years (and in to the future as well), the company make various grade crystals to be used on watches when diamonds were too much, or the application was different. The new Swarovski collection has a multitude of watches but the most hip and urban is easily this D:Light digital watch. Basically, you have 172 Xillion-cut (sounds classy eh?) crystals that make up a display panel. A light under the crystals can turn on or off creating the numbers that are displayed for the time.

The lights do more than just help tell the time and apparently put on little shows for you - but I’d have to see the watch in full action to understand that part of it more. Two versions of the Swarovski D:Light watch will be available including steel and gold PVD models. Inside is a Swiss quartz movement. It certainly looks more like a time-telling bracelet than a watch, but the look is just right for some and is most certainly unique. Priced $1,500 - $1,700.

New Kids On The Block are hitting the road again in support of their album The Block! Donnie, Jordan, Joey, Danny and Jon will kick off the “Full Service Tour” on May 28th in Atlanta, playing shows through July 18th in Houston. Jabbawockeez, the champs from season one of MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew,” will join NKOTB on the road for what promises to be the hottest party of the summer.
Check out the new video of Donnie on the homepage of NKOTB.com discussing what to expect on the new tour. The clip features plenty of live footage and the guys’ signature dance moves.
Dates for NKOTB’s Full Service Tour:

May 28: Atlanta (Lakewood Amphitheatre)
May 29: Birmingham, Ala. (Verizon Wireless Music Center)
May 30: Tampa, Fla. (Ford Amphitheater)
May 31: West Palm Beach, Fla. (Cruzan Amphitheater)
June 2: Charlotte, N.C. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
June 3: Raleigh, N.C. (Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion )
June 5: Virginia Beach, Va. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
June 6: Camden, N.J. (Susquehanna Bank Center)
June 7: Washington, D.C. (Nissan Pavilion)
June 10: Scranton, Pa. (Toyota Pavilion)
June 11: Pittsburgh (Post-Gazette Pavilion)
June 12: Wantagh, N.Y. (Nikon at Jones Beach Theater)
June 13: Holmdel, N.J. (PNC Bank Arts Center)
June 14: Buffalo, N.Y. (Darien Lake Performing Arts Center)
June 16: Saratoga, N.Y. (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)
June 18: Uncasville, Conn. (Mohegan Sun)
June 19: Boston (Comcast Center)
June 21: Toronto (Molson Amphitheater)
June 23: Cleveland (Blossom Music Center)
June 25: Detroit (DTE Energy Music Center)
June 26: Chicago (First Midwest Bank Amphitheater)
June 27: Cincinnati ( Riverbend Music Center)
June 28: INDIANAPOLIS (Verizon Amphitheater)
July 1: St. Louis (Verizon Wireless)
July 2: Memphis, Tenn. (Mud Island Ampitheater)
July 3: Wichita, Kans. (Hartman Arena)
July 7: Seattle (White River Amphitheatre)
July 9: San Francisco (Sleep Train Pavilion at Concord)
July 10: Irvine, Calif. (Verizon Wireless Ampitheater)
July 11: Las Vegas (The Pearl)
July 12: Phoenix (Cricket Wireless Pavilion)
July 15: Denver (Fiddler’s Green)
July 17: Dallas (Superpages.com Center)
July 18: Houston (Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavilion)

Gorgeousness is available at a discount. The 164-foot Benetti yacht Multiple has had a steep discount. The yacht, which was launched in 2002, was built to a Jon Bannenberg design. This streamlined yacht can cruise at 17 knots with a top speed of 21 knots. There are three double cabins and a spacious master suite. This is one of the last yachts designed by Bannenberg before he passed away and it shows the retro-futuristic style the master preferred. Multiple had an original asking price of €25 million and has been cut to €19 million.

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