Financial Times How To Spend It, June 2007
Palazzo Confidential – Intimate Venice
 ...FitzRoy, who is also a dab hand at parties, is a master at securing the Basilica of St Mark’s when it’s closed to the public, bringing in organists for a private recital. (“We had the place to ourselves,” says Sam Whitbread, former chairman of the eponymous brewer and a recent FitzRoy client. “It was my 70th birthday. Every member of my party of 19 thought this the highlight – the amazing effect of watching the gold mosaics emerge on the ceiling as they slowly brought up the lights.”) FitzRoy can also get access to La Fenice for a private aria from La Traviata (“We had a guide take us behind the scenes,” says Whitbread. “It struck quite a different note from any other of my former three visits to Venice.”) She can arrange an appointment on Murano at the atelier of Archimede Seguso, the glassmaker who worked for Cartier, Versace, Tiffany and Valentino (and strictly off limits to the public; his grandson now runs the business), or the Bevilacqua workshops where you can buy the velvets and Jacquards favoured by the likes of Gucci and Cavalli. Or she can set up a visit with Marie Brandolini, another exceptional glassmaker – clients include interior designer Allegra Hicks and American Vogue’s Anna Wintour – who operates out of her private palace on the Grand Canal. Not that FitzRoy only sticks to very smart names. She can also reveal the simpler, authentic side of Venice, from the fishermen’s tapas bars to some of the lagoon’s smaller islands....
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