Have you experienced Glyndebourne yet?

Top tips for your evening to the Opera at Glyndebourne:

Look good. There is no longer any formal dress code for attending the opera, but Glyndebourne expects its guests to be wearing black tie for its performances during Festival season.

Know a little bit about the opera you are attending. This can be achieved in numerous ways, of course; Glyndebourne, for example, offers “opera bites”, which are introductions to a selection of its repertoire.

No matter how arresting or engrossing the performance is, please try not to sing/hum/tap along. It may not go down well with your neighbours!

Remember the difference between your bravo/brava/bravi and brave for the performers – one certainly wouldn’t want to cause offence by getting the gender wrong (some of the performers are less than elfin)

Finally, enjoy it! It’s quite a spectacle, and bear in mind how long it has taken the company to prepare the opera – there’s a reason for the term “operatic”

Take a look at what The SaVVy Club have organised for a magical experience at Glyndebourne.

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Anyone For Lunch?

       Introducing… London’s most expensive set menu: 

At £1000-a-head, a seven-course culinary extravaganza

The menu was designed by Farringdon Street wine bar Vivat Bacchus after customers asked for a special tasting menu to celebrate the bonus season. Co-owner Neleen Strauss said: “Some of our regular customers are always up for fun. I asked them how much their bonus was and how much they were prepared to pay. They said ‘make it a nice round number’.”

She and head chef Robert Staegemann filled the menu with all their “non-vegetarian fantasies” and matched each course with one of the world’s great wines.

To start: a glass of Billecart Salmon Rosé, one of the finest pink champagnes. Then course one, a bowl of Royal Sevruga caviar served with buckwheat blinis rated “light as air”. The accompaniment was a more than generous slug of 2003 vintage Kauffman vodka.

Next, a Bahama rock lobster linguini – flavoured with 40-year-old Armagnac. The wine was a South African 1996 Forrester Meinert Chenin. Followed by a plate of paper-thin slices of Spanish Joselito Gran Reserve ham from pigs living on a diet of acorns. Then a Dr Atkins dream or a heart specialist’s worst nightmare: a slab of grilled Wagyu fillet steak from cows so pampered they get massages, topped with foie gras. Then a rare sight of vegetables, a small portion of green beans.

The wine reached its pinnacle of extravagance, a glass from a £700 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. A board of 15 cheeses ranged from a truff le-infused Brillat Savarin to a knock-your-head off blue called Fourme au Maury. The wine? Port of
course. A dreamy 1963 Taylors.

Then the pudding, a chocolate soufflé with another of the bankers’ favourites, a Chateau D’Yquem, a wine so rarefied that each bunch of grapes in it is tasted individually. Coffee followed accompanied by a large glass of Martell Cordon Bleu cognac.

The bill for two? £2,250 including a 12.5 per cent service charge.

According to Ms Strauss, London is probably the only city in the world that could support such a menu.

 

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