Sweet Taste Of Morroco

Meet the very elegant Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli  (pictured here with tv personality Tracey Spicer) who is in town to tell us about Morocco and the rather splendid hotel he owns there-La Maison Arabe in Marrakesh.
Fabrizio was the star guest at a small reception-The Sweet Taste of Morocco -in the Patisse restaurant in the Pyd building near Dank Street in Waterloo.

Born in France with an Italian father, Fabrizio holidayed as a child in Tangier at his grandparents villa and fell in love with the country.
 La Maison Arabe, as you can see from our pics is a luxury hotel decorated in Moroccan style and is Ruspoli's pride and joy. It's one of the town's best kept secrets and is reasonably priced considering it's now been discovered by the jet set who see it as the perfect alternative to their usual choice, the 6 star historic Mamounia which re-opened in 2009 after a complete makeover.

La Maison Arabe

At the Mamounia's re-launch a host of famous names jetted in for the celebrations-Salma Hayek, Orlando Bloom, Bryan Ferry, Sarah Jessica Parker and Paloma Picasso. Jose Carreras entertained the guests. The re-opening of the Mamounia summed up just how quickly Marrakesh is becoming a tourism developer's dream.

Salma Hayek in Marrakesh

La Maison Arabe

Although Prince Fabrizio is in the tourism business he is fearful that Marrakesh may go the way of some famous Mediterranean hot spots and has likened it, (and not in a complimentary fashion) to "St Tropez without the boats". He is alarmed that luxury spas and branches of French restaurants, art galleries, nightclubs and golf courses, all with European prices are opening there. Hopefully he's comforted that at least McDonald's was given the cold shoulder by the town burghers. At the reception to greet our Italian aristocrat was one Sydney's best chefs who also happens to be Moroccan-Hassan M'Souli who owns the award winning restaurant Out Of Africa in Manly. He whipped up some delicious Morrocan treats for the party guests.
As for Sydney, Fabrizio said he has been pleasantly surprised :"the trees" he said,"so many beautiful trees, everywhere I go there are just beautiful trees!"

Check out La Maison Arabe here and Out Of Africa here.

the return of The Bag

The Jackson family continues their endless exploitation celebration of Michael Jackson's demise life.

Germaine Jackson flew into town on Monday night for Who Magazine's party for singer Rhianna and announced a tour of the Jackson Family to  honour Michael's life. Who Magazine parties are a nightmare. You aren't allowed to take photos. Just to show there were no hard feelings we took some anyway.40 minutes was enough of this bun fight.

                                                                                                

Paloma Picasso and James Gordon

Time was pressing and Paloma Picasso beckoned at Tiffany for the launch of her new range of jewelery. It's been 12 years since Picasso was in town. Tiffany's party at their new Martin Place store was welcome relief and a low key affair with about 80 good customers and an endless supply of Billecart salmon brut champers.

Paloma lives in Marrakesh these

days and we are jealous. We had something in common. tSS and Paloma had frequented many of the same houses inhabited by expatriates in Marrakesh including the fabled home of the late Yves St Laurent, with it's magical sunken garden. Paloma's range of jewelry is heavily influenced by her Moroccan life with Arabic diagonal motifs.

The last Tiffany's party tSS went to was for Elsa Peretti. She invited us to travel to New Guinea with her 2 days later. We went. It was a big mistake. We'd go to Morocco with Paloma though. She's fun.

More importantly, Tiffany's signaled the end of the world-wide recession with the gift bag !. The gift bag had vanished in the past 2 years as promotional budgets were crimped or a pathetic attempt was passed off-usually a collection of sub standard cosmetics or fake tans and samples. The kind of stuff given out in department stores.

During his years of a partying in New York Andy Warhol refused to leave until he had his gift bag firmly clamped under his arm. He collected them . He had rows and rows of shelves of gift bags. He never opened them and said one day he was going to have a big bag party and sit down and open every one like an excited child at Christmas. He would telephone friends the next day and say "what was in the bag ?" He got excited thinking about all those presents waiting to be opened. He died before that happened. Now they're in the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

And Paloma was no slouch with hers. A beautiful set of silver cuff links-just perfect to wear at Chanel's parade the following night at the Inglis Newmarket stables. Chanel's new range is mainly hessian based which I guess is why they choose the stables.$3000 for a hessian mini-skirt. Why not ?. Guests trotted out their ancient Chanel . We spotted 2 fake Chanel handbags. The cheek of some people !. And there was a gift bag full of Chanel make-up                                                                                 

Chanel people

But the verdict was unanimous amongst those who had been at Tiffany and Chanel-Tiffany was fun but Chanel had better looking waiters.

wait person

Kirk Pengilly & Layne Beachley

INXS's Kirk Pengilly and wife,world surfing champion Layne Beachley were at Tiffany. Layne  had a date the following day-giving surfing lessons to Zac Efron on Bondi Beach.

Zac Efron at Bondi Beach