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Gostelow Report: Savoring Santorini at St. Regis Bal Harbour

“It is a tremendous help having an F&B background, as I know how to work hard,” says Oliver Key, general manager of Florida’s St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort, which has 216 hotel rooms and 300 owned residences.

The hotel opened January 19, 2012, with a 100-seat J&B Grill by Jean Georges Vongerichten (later switched to a high-revenue banquet space) and a dedicated breakfast room, plus a wine cellar. In November 2015, realizing that a family concept was needed, BH Burger Bar was added. Exactly a year later, with Key now on board, a plausible Greek restaurant, Atlantikos, opened in what previously had been half of the extensive fitness area, down by the pool.

“Luxury today includes casual formality and offering something different. Why Greek? Our owner is a Qatari who loves Greek food, and he wanted the best in the entire Miami area,” explained the GM. As of April 15, Key will be managing director of The St. Regis Bali and The Laguna, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Nusa Dua, Bali. 

Oliver Key in Atlantikos, formed out of part of the hotel's fitness center
Oliver Key in Atlantikos, formed out of part of the hotel’s fitness center

Gensler’s Michael Volk was briefed to come up with a typical Santorini look, in Mediterranean colors. White tables, with tops of royal blue agate, have white china and 6-inch-tall living olive trees in pots. Next, with the help of Starwood’s hotels in Athens, Key was able to attract both charismatic and talented young chef Tasos Chasekioglou and a Greek manager, Panos Nikiforou.

If hotel guests are not happy with just two options, burgers or Greek, there is sushi in the St. Regis Bar, and Bal Harbour Mall, with a range of dining options, is three minutes’ walk away. “And since all our rooms are ocean-facing, we do an average of 50 covers a night in private dining. The smallest bedroom is 670 square feet, and all have 200-square-foot balconies – can you imagine anywhere more attractive for eating a kale salad or a pastrami on rye than looking down at the beach and the sea?” he asked.

But it is Atlantikos that attracts the most attention, and Key reckons that vacation guests, who year-round stay an average of four nights, will typically eat two or three main meals there during any one stay. Popular dishes include taramasalata, sardines with Thassos Island crushed olives and Aegean wild seabream, which could all go with a glass of Dijon-trained George Skouras’ Saint George Aghiorghitiko Némea 201. At breakfast, a side room becomes a copious buffet with live juicing and cooking stations: The $44 basic cost, plus 18% service and 11% tax (plus 4% village tax) of course offers authentic Greek yogurt as well as the signature egg dish, Kagiana, with tomato, green pepper and feta foam.

During holiday seasons the usual $750 average room rate leaps to over $2,500, with average stay, then, of two weeks, accommodation-only. Since the Marriott merger, about 25% of all reservations are loyalty redemptions. Even at this relatively early stage of the year, Key expects to close 2018, overall, at 75% occupancy, up from 2017’s 73%. Although it is difficult to say that room reservations come directly as a result of his food offerings, he has seen overall F&B spend, per night, up 8% since he arrived in Florida in January 2016.

“One of the few drawbacks to success is having to work hard, but I learned that by working my way up the F&B ladder at The Savoy, back in England. Here, I am in the hotel by 8 a.m. and do not leave until 7 or 8 p.m.,” he shared. Success is, of course, helped by minute planning; it also helps that Key lives only five minutes from the hotel. 

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