More hors d’oeuvres are stationed on two large tables on the far side of the room. The first, anchored by an ice sculpture, is flanked by freshly shucked oysters topped with buttery, orange uni on one side and a server doling out caviar bumps on the other. In their gowns and bowties, guests giddily slurp mounds of glinting caviar off the back of their hand.
The other table garners more of a crowd, as it features a cornucopia of less traditional gala fare: African blue tilapia, silk worm pupae served on a slice of cucumber, meal worms lain across each other in a delicate X, chubby grubs on a skewer, shiny cave cockroaches, two types of larvae, mopani worms, and, the grand finale, a spiny roast iguana. The crowd swarms the table, peering down at the adventure foods and excitedly asking each other what they’d tried and how it tasted. It isn’t long until the spread is picked clean.
“Interesting” is the refrain of the evening. Nearly everyone I speak with mentions that a major benefit of their membership is getting to know so many interesting people.
I chat with one such interesting person near the center of the room. “My claim to fame was I did the world’s first skydive over Mount Everest,” he tells me. “Why? Because you can. And because the mountain was there.” When I google his name later, I find his website, where he describes himself as “an astronaut, an adventurer and explorer, a philanthropist, entrepreneur, global financier, author and private island owner.” Equal parts dreamer and financier, it would seem.
