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

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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

Rupert & Matty Take Manhattan

There's more than one Aussie Rupert wielding power in New York. Whilst Rupert Murdoch oversees a global media empire from his NYC base, fashion entrepreneur Rupert Noffs is carving out his own successful career with his unique Gideon Shoes that are fast becoming the favourite footwear of young celebrities and popping up for sale in more and more US fashion stores.

Rupert Noffs (left) and Matty Bennett

Just last September we reported on the wedding of Noffs, grandson of Sydney's Wayside Chapel founder Rev Ted Noffs, when  Rupert married his long time partner Matty Bennett.
Now Bennett, known affectionately as Matty Bee is opening a restaurant with Noffs on Broome Street (where Whispers lived for 2 years in a loft) on the fashionable Lower East Side.

 To be called The Lucky Bee, food will be South East Asian inspired "from farm to table" and will join the small number of popular cafes and eateries run by Aussie ex-pats such as The Fashionable Cow and former model & photographer Lincoln Pilcher's Kingswood.
# When Whispers lived in Broome Street we were advised by the local plod to avoid walking home late at night. How times change.  Below : the location for The Lucky Bee

Wedding Bells

While the world's paparazzi have gathered in Venice to catch a glimpse of Hollywood heart throb George Clooney's wedding to Amal Alamuddin, New York ex-pat Aussies are heading to Central Park today for the nuptials of ex-Sydneysider Rupert Noffs and his partner Matty Bennett.

Noffs has been living in New York for four years and has been overseeing the set-up of his burgeoning shoe empire Gideon Shoes, favoured by young Hollywood types like Justin Timberlake, and which runs as a charity to aid young Aussies to enter the fashion world. Profits are ploughed back into the Street University in Sydney's western suburbs run by his older brother Mathew. He is also the grandson of the late reverend Ted Noffs the much loved founder of the Kings Cross' Wayside Chapel.

Rupert Noffs with partner Matty Bennett & mum Mandy Noffs in the middle

Ted Noffs

Wedding gossip :
# There is much talk amongst Hollywood insiders that Clooney's eventual plan is a run for Governor of California with many remarking that wife Amal 
Alamuddin has the charisma of Jackie Kennedy. 
 # One guest at the Noffs' nuptials will be top US publicist and reality TV star Kelly Cutrone who has guided Gideon Shoes to US success. Cutrone had a famous run-in with Sydney gossip scribe Ros Reines as we detailed in 2011.
# Rupert's grandmother was the flamboyant turban-wearing Double Bay identity Lois Rodie who owned the popular Coral Lea boutique.                                                

Liberal Senator In A Tizz Over David Hicks

Just days after we reported that David Hicks who spent nearly 6 years banged up in Guantanamo Bay, attended a party for the Wayside Chapel at Boomerang (and the Daily Telegraph said he was "partying with the jet-set), Liberal Senator George Brandis (left) has accused the ruling Labor government of not moving quickly to recover the profits from David Hicks's memoirs under the "proceeds of crime" laws because it "fears a backlash from the political left."

Oh really ?



Brandis was one of the chief cheerleaders of former PM John Howard who solemnly intoned in Parliament in 2003 that Iraq was awash with WMD and described in detail the non existent "human shredding machines" that Saddam Hussein was prone to use on his subjects.



David Hicks



Howard later indicated that Australian SAS troops had already entered Iraq weeks before a decision to go to war had been made- one he himself decided he had the power to make without a Parliamentary vote unlike our allies the UK & USA - and soon we were participating in a war that has seen a million Iraqis displaced and hundreds of thousands killed on a slew of falsehoods.

Does George Brandis honestly want a case to be pursued against Hicks over the  profits from his 'crime' ?.

 Most except the most pedantic accept that the reason Hicks pleaded guilty was  to get out of the hell-hole in Cuba where he faced year upon year of incarceration without trial.

The US chief Army prosecutor at Gitmo who resigned (one of at least 7) over the disgraceful legal tactics  there has said Hicks should never have been charged and his case was riddled with political interference from both Howard and George W.Bush.

The charges labelled against Hicks were a bizarre mish mash of gobbedlly gook that accused him of being an 'enemy combatant' in a 'war' which was, and wasn't declared and therefore after some Olympian leaps of logic the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to those captured.

A case against Hicks in an Australian court to recover any profits made from his book would surely bring out the most learned legal minds just itching to examine the role of a whole host of US & Australian politicians. The repercussions could be most unpleasant especially for George Brandis' (an intelligent barrister who parrots absurdities that he surely cannot believe) beloved John Howard. ( According to rumour Brandis once referred to John Howard as "that lying rodent Howard".He's never denied it)

Brandis may well find that what he wishes for may just happen. The outcome may not be what he desires.



Ben Ferencz



To read the Alice in Wonderland type case that was mounted against Hicks his Wikipedia entry is most illuminating.

## Now 90 years old the legendary legal mind Ben Ferencz was the US Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials and he sent several Nazis to the their execution after WW2. He eventually went to work for the International Criminal Court and has been an outspoken advocate for the rule of law during his distinguished career as well as a critic of various government's  illicit activities.

Ferencz gave a speech on the 8th March  titled :

"My Government Today Prepared to Do Something for Which We Hanged Germans"

### In a response to the Daily Telegraph's question as to why Hicks had been invited to the Boomerang party, a Wayside Chapel spokesman said "we were honored to have David Hicks as a guest as we were honoured by all who attended"