Thursday, February 13, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

New York City and Newport, Rhode Island, go way back. It was, after all, largely members of New York's elite Four Hundred who transformed the tiny island, turning it into America's first resort playground. Summers, New York's moneyed class would make an en masse exodus for their "cottages" in Newport. This month, we're reversing time and direction by bringing a taste of Newport's Gilded Age to Manhattan in the person of Richard Hamilton of the soon-to-open Spiced Pear at The Chanler.

Set to begin accepting guests this spring, The Chanler is a sumptuously renovated 1873 mansion on Newport's famed Cliff Walk. It's a spectacular, European-inspired boutique hotel set amid manicured lawns with Jacuzzis, fireplaces, wet bars, and DVDs in each of its individually decorated period rooms. Frankly, we'd be happy to be assigned the kitchen suite for the length of our stay. There, chef Hamilton stands behind the stoves, and oh what a stove—an enviable $100,000 custom-designed Bonnet model from France. As Newport Daily News columnist Midge Knerr wrote about that stove, "it's obvious the owners have a lot of faith in Hamilton." You will, too, after one taste of his elegant cuisine.

Hamilton started cooking at his parents' Cajun restaurant in Oklahoma City when he was just six years old! Fast forward to age 23, and you'd have found him attending cooking school in Paris. One culinary degree wasn't enough for this ambitious young chef; by the time he left the City of Light, he'd graduated from both the Ritz-Escoffier Ecôle du Gastronomie and Le Cordon Bleu. Hamilton's post-graduation credits include a stint as chef de cuisine at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and as executive chef at the Dunmore Beach Club in the Bahamas. He also co-owned (with Barbara Mandrell and several others) and ran the kitchen at Nashville's beloved Magnolia's, where he earned a four-star rating from AAA.

Over the years, Hamilton has cooked for and with celebrities. Among those who have enjoyed his food are Julia Roberts, Elton John, Mariah Carey, and Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, people whose glamor and power, makes them the 21st-century equivalents of the Astors and the Vanderbilts. Shouldn't you join this privileged few?