Diamonds for Dinner: Counting Carats Not Calories Makes Anyone Swoon — Jewels Flown in From London Wow

On this most unusual yet elegant evening at La Table, guests were counting carats, not calories, though both soared into delicious stratospheric levels. De Beers Diamond Jewellers and PaperCity teamed up for a gourmet soirée celebrating divine diamond pieces including a dozen from the high jewelry collection, flown in from the house’s  founding city of London.

While guests admired the $1 million necklaces and longed for the $19,000 talisman rose gold medallion (that would be me), attentive waiters swirled through with trays of champagne and fine wines and oh-so-French hors d’oeuvres. Among the diamonds catching the eyes of serious shoppers were those from the Enchanted Lotus collection, one of the company’s best sellers. The ladies swooned over their favorite pieces and signaled their personal Santas to take note.

As one guest slyly noted, “I mean, what do you expect. You put a girl in front of diamonds and she’s going to shop.”

A glamorous group of couples served as hosts for the cocktail attire evening — Rania and Jamal Daniel, Dominique Sachse and Nick Florescu, Sima and Masoud Ladjevardian, Sabiha and Omar Rehmatulla.

The evening’s marriage of fine diamonds and fine French food was a natural, observed Alexandre Gaudelet, founder and CEO of Invest Hopsitality, which owns Le Table. De Beers, he noted, was founded in 1888, the same year that famed French chef Auguste Escoffier was born. Et voila! A French dinner.

After visually feasting on the diamonds, guests were seated for a gourmet dinner celebrating the best of the restaurant’s French-inspired menu: Vichyssoise au Caviar (potato and leek soup with caviar), Raviolis de Homard Rafraichis (Daikon lobster chilled ravioli), Poularde au Vin Jaune et Truffes (heritage chicken with vin jaune and truffles), and a flaming Omelette Norvegienne (baked Alaska). And then came the mignardises (bite-sized confectionery) in the form of light-as-air macarons and other sweets.

Dreaming of diamonds: PaperCity editor-in-chief Holly Moore, PaperCity publisher Monica Bickers, Francoise and Ed Djerejian, Neekie Kashani, Fadila Kibsgaard, Maria Bush, Melissa and Michael Mithoff, Joyce Echols and Steve Wyatt, Lora Clemmons, Alma Kantarjian, Kent Shaffer, Shara Kuy, Tiffany and Randall Wong, Inna Wizig and Katherine Treistman.