Aussie restaurant tops in Manhattan

Noffs with Julia Gillard & Matty Bennett

Former Sydneysiders Rupert Noffs and his partner Matty Bennett are cleaning up in New York with the success of their restaurant The Lucky Bee . The pair have received rave reviews in US publications for their trendy Soho eatery which is attracting the likes of locals and celebrities from Martha Stewart, fashion designer Valentino, LL Cool J to former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
Noffs is the grandson of Wayside Chapel founder the Rev Tedd Noffs and moved to New York  four years ago to promote his unique brand of Gideon Shoes, Bennett was the sous chef at Sydney's Longrain restaurant. The pair married late last year in a  civil ceremony.

Apart from New York A-listers it's  the food media the pair have won over including positive reviews in the Manhattan's lifestyle bible The Village Voice with the influential New York Eater website naming The Lucky Bee as the best new comer on the block :
"The Lucky Bee is the new farm-to-table Southeast Asian cafe from restaurateur Rupert Noffs and former Fat Radish sous chef Matty Bennett. The menu includes coconut-braised short ribs, grilled whole shrimp, salt & pepper wings, and green curry with vegetables. The dining room has a kooky vibe, with 60s-style lamps, hanging ferns, and pink & black stripes all over the place."

The Lucky Bee which also sells NYC-produced honey from rooftop hives is located at 252 Broome Street in lower Manhattan. Whispers many moons ago lived for 2 years in a Broome Street loft almost opposite where The Lucky Bee is now located. At the time the area was only warehouses, deserted at night, and even lofts were illegal dwellings. They now sell for many millions of dollars. How times change.

Martha Stewart is a fan of The Lucky Bee

                                        *******************************


Whisper's best wishes go out to two of our favourite locals Kerri-Anne Kennerley and her husband John Kennerley after John's recent tragic accident when he broke his neck after a balcony fall.

We've encountered the pair numerous times over the years and a more loving couple is hard to find. The pair are devoted to each other and this must be particularly trying time for Kerri-Anne.

 The last time we saw them at a party John told us about his favourite hobby - he has constructed a fantastic miniature train system that snakes throughout the pair's living room. John constructs everything himself including building a miniature model the magnificent Shrewbury train station in Shropshire

Fashion Follies

New York Fashion Week has just concluded and TV talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has sent a reporter out to interview fashion punters attending. Just one hitch-every fashion 'name' and designer the reporter asks about is a phony.

Video Of The Day : The Queen Explodes

 Dame Helen Mirren berates a team of ear-splitting drummers outside the Gielgud Theatre in Soho, London who performed while she was trying to give a performance as The Queen.
The drummers were advertising London’s As One In the Park gay music festival. What is about gay festivals and bloody drums ?. Bad enough that the old phoney Madonna is adored by the gay community but they have penchant for loud drums as any Sydneysider who wanders near Oxford Street will discover.
Video by Chris Dangerfield.

Hemmes New York Move

Tom Waterhouse & Hodo at the Cosmo bash

One happy looking couple at Wednesday's Fun Fearless & Female awards sponsored by Cosmopolitan Magazine were bookmaker Tom Waterhouse and his new bride Hodo Vakili.

 The pair have just returned from their Italian honeymoon after marrying on the Mediterranean island of Sicily in front of two dozen family and friends who jetted in for the nuptials.

Tom, who at 29 has now become Australia's top bookmaker and is a regular at the race tracks in Melbourne and Sydney told the Shuttle that his new online betting business is going gangbusters and he and Hodo plan to buy a home in Melbourne where he is increasingly spending more time.

No word yet on whether we can expect a Waterhouse junior any time soon but the couple say they're working on it !
                                                    *******************************

Hotel and nightclub entrepreneur Justin Hemmes who has a $200M empire employing over 3000 people is planning to expand to the Big Apple next year and has been spotted checking out locations in the trendy Soho area of Lower Manhattan.

Although Hemmes has said he plans to first open a restaurant based on his successful Potts Point Lotus, our New York spy says the nightclub mogul was seen inspecting a building in Tribeca that was large enough to contain a hotel and restaurant complex.

Justin Hemmes-headed for New York City

With a swag of smart boutique hotels including the Establishment and Ivy complex and several pubs around inner Sydney, Hemmes seems to have the golden touch. Where he goes the punters follow and much of that is down to his talented sister Bettina Hemmes who designs the decor in all his nite spots.

Top New York photographer Patrick McMullan, an editor on Vanity Fair and corespondent for a swag of US magazines like Ocean Drive, Interview and New York Magazine says there is already a buzz in NYC about Hemmes who has been seen at several smart parties in recent months.

As no function in the city that never sleeps is complete without McMullan and his attendance at a party is a guarantee of social success, when Patrick starts mentioning your name, you know you have it made !

Just so Justin can get in a Big Apple mood-here's young Liam Burrows who blew away the audience last week on Australia's Got Talent with his version of New York New York. Perhaps Justin should invite him to sing at the opening of his new US nite-spot !

Bringing Home The Bacons

Word comes that 2 professional treasure hunters have arrived in the Thai seaside resort of Pattaya intent on investigating the strange case-as exclusively revealed on the Social Shuttle, of the missing Francis Bacon collection of paintings. Apparently they have been making discreet enquiries around town.

The rumor has been the talk of Pattaya since Bacon's lover John Edwards died in 2003

The Shuttle was an occasional drinking pal with Bacon at the legendary Colony Club in London's Soho during the 1980s.  Bacon was a friendly and unpretentious man for an artist whose paintings brought the greatest ever price for a living artist. Although he lived in comfortable circumstances, they were relatively modest compared to the eventual fortune he was to leave his lover John Edwards when he died in 1992:  approximately 30 million dollars.

In his early years Bacon survived by stealing, dodging rent collectors , working as a domestic servant and as a shop assistant.

Born in Ireland with an English mother and an Australian army officer father, Bacon was a descendant of Sir Francis Bacon and it was only in later life he experienced success and indulged in his passions-drinking, lunching and gambling.

Francis Bacon self portrait

He was also fond of 'rough trade'. Several affairs with young men ended acrimoniously. One whom he  discovered breaking into his apartment one day become his live-in lover. Eventually he was to settle down with Edwards whom he doted on.

Bacon would sell a painting  and lavish money on Edward's East End family and bought them a huge house where he occasionally stayed for weeks on end . He treated Edward's to a Rolls Royce with the number plate BOY 1.

When Edwards inherited Bacon's fortune he moved to Thailand and purchased a magnificent seaside penthouse and a country mansion . In 2003 Edwards died in Bangkok.

According to Bacon's original will all his works of art where to be given to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and it's said, most where.  But visitors to Edwards Pattaya apartment said that they observed at least half a dozen Bacon works on the walls. When Edwards died one London newspaper speculated the paintings were copies which seemed a bizarre claim when Bacon gave Edwards anything he asked for.  One tale was that Bacon had actually given the 6 paintings to Edwards but told him not to declare them for tax reasons.

Edwards took on a series of young Thai men as lovers although he had an English lover as well. As Edwards became ill from AIDS it's said that he gave his last Thai lover who he had known for a little over 2 years, the 6 Francis Bacon works to store at the young man's family home  near the Chaing Mai area. When Edwards died the young man was away visiting his family and never returned.

Several people who tried to track down the Thai man have been unsuccessful and the tale of the missing Bacon paintings has become a local legend. It's believed that somewhere in the north of Thailand the 6 paintings may be displayed on the walls of a simple farm house without the occupants realizing the true value of them.

A local interior decorator who also has showrooms in London and owns 2 Bacon paintings is said to be the only one who had met Edward's Thai lover and attempted to trace him but then got cold feet because of the implications over the provenance of the paintings.

In 2008 the Russian oligarch Roman Abrovanich paid nearly $83M for Bacon's 1974 work Triptych.
The previous record for one of his works was $53M. This year Bacon's portrait of his friend and artist Lucien Freud sold for $35M.

Lucien Freud

That puts the estimate of the value of the 6 missing Bacon's (if they exist) at a possible $330M !.

The return of Steve Strange, King of the post Baby Boomers.

A story comes courtesy of Britain's most feared blogger (by tabloid editors and writers ) Madame Arcati. Madame has received an invitation to the birthday party of the legendary Steve Strange, famous as the leader of the 1980's New Romantics and who first gained attention running a small club in Soho called The Blitz.

The birthday bash is at a pub called the Green Carnation which describes itself as "the latest destination de decadence for the Soho set looking to add some sparkle to their Saturday night. ".Oh dear.

The very idea that there is still one square inch of Soho that now could lay claim to 'decadence' could only come from the mind of a PR firm. Decadence was beaten out of Soho years ago by property developers and those interminably boring barista expresso bars that are popping up on every corner from  Delhi to Reykjavick. Perhaps the only person who frequents Soho and may lay claim to decadence is the permanent fiance of Madame Arcarti, that delightful millinery challenged,  Molly Parkin.

The youngsters who flocked to The Blitz in the late 70's, early 80's wore weird and wonderful outfits, acres of make-up were a reaction to the Punk Rock movement. Stars were soon checking out the club including David Bowie, Bob Geldorf and Paula Yates, Yves St Laurent and it's said the late Lord Longford even stopped by.

Steve Strange au naturel

Steve was the King of The Kids.Whatever Steve wore, those kids appeared in their own version the following week.

Strange went on to run a series of one nighter clubs in various venues with his best mate Rusty Egan. And it was just a matter of time as his other pal Boy George became spectacularly famous with his "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me", that Egan and Strange would form a band, Visage.They soon had their own a hit record "Fade to Grey'.

Unfortunately long time success eluded Strange. Drugs and dramatic events such as a fire in his house took their toll as Steve went into a downward spiral and he retreated to his home village in Wales. He recountered his life, warts and all in his autobiography Blitzed! published in 2002.

One of our Shuttle staff was a regular at The Blitz and allowed many of those who would party on the regular Tuesday nights to crash on his Notting Hill apartment floor. Most came from the outer suburbs of London and would plan their one night of the week out, Tuesday for days. Getting home at 4 am was just impossible. Steve Strange was one who found the occasional corner to bunk down in.,

new New Romantics

Now we must go back in time to another Shuttle pal, old Etonian Nicholas Shand, heir to a printing and publishing fortune from Shropshire. Shand had forsaken the family business and taken off for the hippy trail ( with a huge inheritance) to places like Goa and  all points beyond before finally landing in the the magical Australian resort of Byron Bay, then a sleepy village and the country's most easterly point and living down it's former life as a whaling station.

With a gorgeous rolling hinterland and beautiful beaches, schools of whales now safe from the spear gun could be spotted daily ambling by the coastline accompanied by flocks of dolphins. The whole area  was God's gift to those seeking an alternative lifestyle.

 Byron Bay is now the most expensive resort in the country full of mega million dollar houses owned by the rich and famous but Shand then was able to purchase a few hundred acres and set up a small newspaper which the town lacked. With ink in the blood, so successful was his Byron Echo newspaper chain that after 10 years he refused a fortune to sell out to the Irish newspaper baron Tony O'Reilly seeking a foothold in Australian rural newspapers.

In 1979 Shand decided to return for 2 years to Shropshire where he opened a successful restaurant 'Mad Jacks' named after Mad Jack Myton, a local legend, and in between serving the local gentry like the Ormsby Gores, frequently travelled to London to stay with our Shuttle staffer. On one such visit he left behind his Peruvian poncho, a souvenir from his hippy days.

Upon awakening one morning Steve Strange seized upon the poncho and that Tuesday night appeared at The Blitz wearing it and looking like a Spaghetti Western cowboy, albeit complete with the usual layers of pancake, purple eye shadow and a bit of lippy. The following week, no less than 20 kids turned up wearing ponchos and cowboy hats, some even munching on cigars and looking like the cast of an Ennio Morricone production. They were afterall was said and done, just kids playing dress ups !

But it was all lost on the young female journalist trainee from the Independent newspaper who had been sent that night to get a handle on the new youth cult craze. She fled dazed and confused.

There's a lesson there about fashion, style and trends or some sort of moral. I think.

NB: Sadly Nicholas Shand died in a car accident on the notorious treacherous roads of Northern NSW. Outside the Byron council chambers sits a statue of him on a park bench, popular with the hundreds of tourists who flock to the area and have their photo taken with his cast-iron likeness, most of them having no idea who he is.

A study in contrasts : Visage & Steve Strange with Fade to Grey followed by Nicholas Shand.