by Ed Charles ALL platinum credit cards offer a concierge service, apart from the American Express credit card product. Amex reserves the concierge service for the top echelon of charge card holders. That’s those with the $1000-a-year platinum charge card or the $4300 Centurion cards. Concierge services also overlap with fine dining, ticket-booking and club schemes run by Mastercard and Visa. The Mastercard Moments and Applause schemes offer premium tickets for shows and can book some of the unbookable tables […]
Author: Ed
The pay-offs of going platinum
COVER STORY Platinum is the new gold in the prestige credit card market, Ed Charles reports ONCE upon a time it was a class act to have a gold credit card. Then in 1997 along came the American Express Platinum charge card. It was invitation-only and more exclusive. Although the prestige was diluted when other players entered the market, led by Citibank in 1999 and the high-street banks three years ago, people still can’t resist the lure of platinum. “Platinum […]
Ed Lines
ED CHARLES dishes up the latest on Melbourne’s food, wine and bars CHEF SWAP Bigger portions and lighter, fresher food are promised by chef Richard Hooper at veg-aquarian concept restaurant SOS (Level 3, Melbourne Central). It’s the one hidden behind the strange entrance at the top of the escalator. Hooper replaces Riccardo Momesso, who fell out with the restaurant’s vegetarian owner Paul Mathis over cooking style and the joint’s unused wood-fired oven. The oven will soon be baking pizzas for […]
42 49 reasons why Melbourne is the top food blogging City in the southern hemisphere
Updated 20.3.07 and hopefully all links working. Any missing please let me know. I think this list of 42 is fairly comprehensive but inevitably there are a couple of local food blogs lurking out there that I haven’t found. There are many more local food blogs out there but they haven’t been updated for months or years. When I started blogging in July 2005 there were barely 30 food blogs locally. Now there are about 100 active ones in Australia. […]
Ed Lines
TOP AUSSIE NOSH The revamped Royal Mail Hotel (519 Spencer St, West Melbourne) is flying in by light aircraft fresh produce from Flinders Island, including crays. Open under new owner Jen Matthews for seven weeks, and with a new chef, the pub also offers your basic $10-$12 mains and plenty of grub for the kids. Watch out for wallaby and smoky bacon sausages, roo burgers and other national emblems. VIN JONES Look for new twists in Thai-influenced modern Australian cooking […]
IN THE BLACK: In the trenches – March 2007
Here’s the problem: Australia is very good at digging stuff out of the ground, and it’s very good at planting loads of stuff in the ground and growing it. What the country isn’t so good at is making high-value products – whether they be minerals or food staples – out of those raw materials. According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), the Australian food industry exports 95 per cent of food in bulk and in minimally […]
Farmers’ markets: are they worth it?
Honeycomb from St Kilda Farmers’ market: worth it. Hopping in your car and going to the St Kilda Farmers’ Market (Peanut Farm Reserve, Chauncer St) this Saturday? From Salon (via Crikey!): “Worried about the global warming impact of the fossil fuel consumed by the trucks that bring your tomatoes from hundreds of miles away to your local supermarket? In a life-cycle analysis, the couple of miles that you drive in your car to get to the supermarket and back does […]
Bridging the family fortune generation gap
By Ed Charles THE question has been exercising the minds of the wealthy forever — how to ensure the kids don’t blow the family fortune. Private banks report that independent advice on investment strategies for the intergenerational transfer of wealth is one of the fastest growing areas of demand. This is especially so in the case of business owners considering retirement. Goldman Sachs JBWere private wealth management managing director Paul Heath says private banking clients are usually successful people who […]
AT YOUR SERVICE – HOW TO JOIN A PRIVATE BANK – YOUR BANK, EXCLUSIVELY
By Ed Charles COVER STORY Qualifying is half the battle to be a customer of a private bank, Ed Charles reports THE world of private banking consists of an exclusive club of retail bank clients and an elite club of global private bank clients. The level of personal service you get and what you pay will depend very much on how much money you have. At the very least for membership of this club you will need assets of about […]