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I have never really felt the need to sport Medusa on clothing, although she once featured on my fly buttons. Saying that I don’t need to turn women to stone to keep away from my fly. It just sorta happens without trying.
I’m really a low key Paul Smith sort of a guy.
But he doesn’t have a luxury hotel on Australia’s Gold Coast.
Donatella Versace does; the world’s first Palazzo Versace resort opened in 2000.
I wanted to say how vulgar this place is. A palazzo beloved of sheiks and their entourages and B grade reality TV stars. And I suppose it is.
It difficult to avoid Medusa anywhere in this hotel. The choice of stone in the foyer is opulent and beautiful marble smooth enough for Donatella to cut a line on. Solid marbles plinths support, ahem, MDF columns. Yes, you heard it.
MDF columns marbled using a paint technique that would have made Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (or any of the Changing Rooms crowd) Proud.
Vanitas (Palazzo Versace, 94 Seaworld Drive, Main Beach 07 5509 8000), chef Steve Szabo’s posh restaurant, is however muted.
One wall features a moral featuring the black painted outlines of naked roman men. The other wall overlooks the hotel swimming pool.
Service is polite and our rabble is seated. We’d already topped-up on a bottle of Veuve at The Marriott’s colonial style bar. So it was annoying if not pretty funny after we rejected aperitifs to be left for perhaps 10 minutes before menus arrive – which we wanted so we could select wines to match to the meal.
Szabo’s panibi is the best and most greedy – decadent – restaurant-cooked bread I have ever tasted. Flaky in texture, its is so buttery that Marlon Brando might have used one in Last Tango in Paris. They are sort of like a pre-supper croissant.
Iain wins with the starters with oxtail dumplings with Morton bay bugs, herbs and oxtail consommé for $26.
Mind you, the seared Queensland scallops on a salad of cucumber snow peas fetta etc with the all important, and oh so chic crisp pork, for $28.
The Rosenthal Versace porcelain is exquisite in every detail. I want to take it home. Especially when set off by New Caledonian prawns (Szabo thinks they’re the tops) with angel hair pasta, globe artichokes and garlic tarragon butter at $38. We gobbled up our deserts greedily.
The sommelier, who is from Cognac, expertly guided us towards an excellent and fairly priced Elio Altare 2000 Dolcetto d’Alba, which I shall be stocking in my home cellar from now on.
And more praise for the gold-winged teacups.
By the end of the evening the ice cold aircon had frozen Jackie who stylishly sported a beautiful Versace jacket lent by a waitress.
This was a place I was ready to hate, and to rip the piss. The best I could find were the faux columns. Medusa may yet be welcomed into my home. Heck, I may even to pay to stay at Palazzo Versace one day.
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