Settling onto the patio of Sant Ambroeus for a sunset meal, the purr of passing luxury cars is drowned out by a chorus of northern mockingbirds roosting in surrounding palm trees. A hardcover menu arrives on the crisp white tablecloth, evoking a storybook placed on a child’s bed. It promises adventure.
Where would “Kristal Caviale”—Kristal caviar with smoked salmon, French blini, and all the trimmings—take you? Probably no place bad, except possibly debt. Likewise the black truffle and buffalo mozzarella pizza, which sailed by to a neighboring table. A little bird had told me to order the fritto misto “Palm Beach Style.”
What arrived on a white porcelain pedestal was a mound of gulf shrimp, calamari, asparagus, and zucchini flowers, each one suspended in a chiffon cloud of light, crunchy batter. Half a fresh lemon, dressed modestly in a yellow stocking, rode alongside the creamy dipping aioli.
On the other side of the Royal Poinciana Plaza forecourt, Hermès’s illuminated windows winked in a reflecting pool. And overhead, the restaurant’s salmon-canvased umbrella rippled in advance of a shower scooting in from the ocean. Like Proust’s madeleine, all these sensations dissolved into a single fluid surge of pleasure. The pre-dinner martini didn’t hurt, either.
Delivering a single transcendent experience like this is remarkable enough. But now that Sant Ambroeus—which for decades consisted of one location in Milan, Italy, and a cousin in New York—has 13 venues, it must be repeated literally thousands of times a day, in cities thousands of miles apart. The restaurant already enjoys an enviable position at the intersection of quality and, dare one say, “buzz”: The West Village location in Manhattan is where Anna Wintour went for lunch with Jeff Bezos and his coltish paramour, Lauren Sanchez; it was also where Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, made her public debut in 2012. Yet even greater things are on the horizon, including expansion not just within the United States, but in other European countries. The approved collective noun for this phenomenon is a “group of restaurants.” Call it an “empire” and you will be politely corrected; call it a “chain” and you’ll just be corrected.
“We rely on providing very high-end hospitality with a very reliable result,” says Giulia Farinelli, the chief executive of SA Hospitality Group, which also includes sister brands Felice and Casa Lever, bringing the total portfolio to 25 diverse properties. “So being able to have that consistency—yes, it is not easy.”
How all this came to be is a symphony of art, administration, and private equity. The story contained inside that hardcover menu, it turns out, is even more interesting than one might first have imagined.
Read the complete story in PALMER Vol 4., available to purchase here.