When billionaire Anthony Pratt, Executive Chair of Visy invites you to lunch, you can be sure that it’ll be something pretty special.
It’s not just the finest Australian cuisine, but also, the perfect relaxed setting for some serious business banter. Even when the subject is Superannuation.
Weeks in the planning, preparation for such an event starts the day before, where bottles of 2009 Grange Hermitage, are tilted at the necessary angle of 30°, to ensure they are ready for decanting two hours before guests arrive.
An hour before, the tables are set with Cream Damask Featherleaf tablecloth, Bogart cutlery and Riedel glassware, and decorated with ten floral arrangements of three dozen white roses.
As the 25 guests arrive, they are offered Moss Wood Chardonnay, or a Peroni, by wait staff immaculately dressed in black tie, and waistcoats. All seasoned professionals – all hand picked for this particular event.
Though the subject was superannuation, the guests – all billionaires or bankers, had come to explore a radical departure from the current status quo in superannuation. To stimulate some out-of-the-box thinking, the world was simply out-of-this-world.
For starters: fresh burratini with heirloom tomatoes, frisee, Genoa fig, basil and aged balsamic.
Followed by a choice from land or sea: Grilled Rangers Valley fillet of beef with Paris mash, French beans, asparagus , heirloom carrots and shiraz sauce or Roast Blue Eye Cod with roast pumpkin tortellini, fennel puree and chervil vinaigrette.
Whilst each of those gathered are quizzed about whether a significant change was possible, positive or needed, the Grange Hermitage, decanted just two hours ago, is offered by 4 waiters, to keep the conversation moving.
Whilst the rich and powerful focus on their business of solving tomorrow’s problems, the cheeses (two English, one French and a cheeky Victorian goat cheese) discretely appear and quietly compete for attention on the platter.
Just another billionaire hosting his business associates for an exquisite and flawlessly executed lunch? Maybe so. But as Tom Rutherford knows so truly: ‘People will forget what they saw, people will even forget what they ate or drank, but they will never forget how you made them feel’.
