YOUR GUESTS
REMEMBER
WHO MADE
THE CALL.

The 2 a.m. pharmacy run in Lisbon

The couple had been in the Algarve for four days when the allergy medication ran out. It was a Tuesday in August — every pharmacy within ten kilometres shuttered for the night. I'd worked a contact at the hospital dispensary two years prior on a similar request. One call, twelve minutes, a private driver waiting outside their villa by 2:47 a.m.

They checked out two days later and left a note with the front desk. I still have it.

High-season opera tickets from a waitlist

La Fenice in Venice. July. The guest had been on the official waitlist for eleven weeks. What the waitlist doesn't tell you is that there are three other lists — the donor circle, the press allocation, and the house discretionary reserve. I've spent four years building the right relationships with each. Two tickets appeared by Thursday morning. Stalls, row six. He proposed during the interval.

The anniversary dinner rerouted after a flight delay

Their table at Quintessence had been reserved for six months. The flight from Osaka arrived four hours late; by the time they cleared customs the reservation had lapsed. I had the restaurant hold a private room — which they technically don't offer — because the sommelier there trained under someone I placed at a property in Hakone three seasons ago. The dinner began at 11:15 p.m. They called it the best meal of their lives.