HollywoodOn Productions: Janet Donovan & Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Janet Donovan
By the time Hollywood on the Potomac showed up for a tour of Trump International Hotel DC, less than a mile from the White House and set in the Old Post Office, Executive Pastry Chef Fabrice Benezit had already been there for six and a half hours. “We do everything the day before,” he explained. “We make the croissant dough, we shape the croissants and all the pastries because we have to proof them overnight and when I come back in the morning, I bake them.” Expect to see him there until 7 PM and later if he has a banquet or a VIP dinner.
Chef Fabrice
Life starts at Trump Hotel with a power breakfast at 6:30 a.m., followed by a continental breakfast table-side with croissants, coffee, orange juice and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. At eleven o’clock it turns into charcuterie and cheese table-side for when you come in for a working lunch. The champagne flows and it all comes together, not what you would expect in a hotel lobby. Bringing back table-side service brings a big element of fine dining when you arrive; it’s an innovative part of breakfast. They call it The Godfather of service: Think old European elegance – think Palace Hotel in Madrid.
Oliver Beckert, Executive Chef
“I started with the Trump Organization ten years ago when I opened a Trump Hotel in Chicago in January 2008 and then I moved to Canada, opened the Trump Tower in Toronto in January 2012,” General Manager Mickael Damelincourt told us. “Chicago was ninety-six stories and Toronto was sixty-five stories. When we were awarded the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC, I knew that it was such an iconic building, historic building and an amazing location -that it would be one of a kind and that for sure I would like to be involved. The Trump family asked me to move from Toronto to Washington and I was more than happy to do that. In June 2015, when the building was under construction, we started putting together the team, bringing in the sales team, bringing in all the executive positions. I’m very pleased that we have not only put an amazing team together, but we have also been able to open the hotel on time, actually ahead of schedule. This is probably going to be the best hotel in North America. I think everybody understands when you have an iconic building and on top of that you have an amazing location and then you have an amazing team, that’s going to be a big success.”
Mickael Damelincourt and Daniel Mahdavian
Mickael’s day starts when there is no traffic to be at the hotel by 6:30 in the morning and although he usually leaves very late around 11:30 or midnight, he loves what he does. “We’re confident that we have one of a kind hotel, so this really gives us motivation to do more than probably anyone else who owns a hotel in the city. Ivanka, her brothers and her father have been involved since the very beginning, putting the project proposal together. The family got involved very young in the project and I came as a support for the operation in June 2015.”
“We won’t be going home Inauguration night, ” he reminded us. “The hotel is sold out, first of all. We know we’re going to have a full hotel. We know the meeting space is going to be full. We know the restaurant is going to be full. At least we can plan for that. We know it’s going to be extremely busy. Right now, it’s all about the planning for security, working with the various resources that are taking care of security around Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s going to be a learning curve for me. Talking about my first inauguration, it could not be a better one. Having the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, it’s going to be memories for life and stories we’re going to talk about for life.”He can’t confirm whether the Trump family will be staying at the hotel, but we hear there is a special Trump Tower within, a condo. “This area will be on lock down, highly secured. We’ll be in the middle of it. I hope we can take a few minutes to really enjoy it.”
“I think it’s been a just amazing experience,” he added. “I would not be with them after ten years if it was not. I think it’s a family business. What is remarkable is to see all of them work together. We’re talking about working hard and getting up early and working late. They’re really represent the definition of what a family business, hard working people means. We learned a lot. I think their business acumen is second to none. They just want to be the best. They want to do well in anything they do. They want to make sure they do a better job than the competition. That’s what is driving us. I became an American citizen in 2010.” So who did he vote for? “That’s personal.”
“We all may be tired in the middle of an opening, but when you see them being so dedicated to what they do, they’re ultimately giving us [energy]. They’re giving us a tool, a hotel, above and beyond what the competition does,” he concluded. “We ultimately don’t want to disappoint them. We want to show them that we can do as good as they do. I think the entire team is so proud to be working for them. Many companies don’t let you do things your way. Here, they hire us to do a job and we have flexibility that we wouldn’t have in any other company. That’s why people stay and that’s why people are so dedicated to the brand.”
Daniel Mahdavian
The crown jewel in the lobby is the Champagne sabering by Director of Food and Beverage Daniel Mahdavian. “We start with presenting the magnum. We take the top foil off. You find a seam on the bottle, we clear the path. Every bottle has two seams where the two molds come together. You clear the path with a knife. Insert it in ice water for a few minutes, slightly agitating the bubble – there’s about 92 PSI pressure in the bottle, on average. You want to agitate the bubbles and they call it expedite the sea green. You do all of this table side. Almost ready. What I normally do so as not to damage my saber is I want to follow the seam on the bottle against the lip of the glass. I loosen the cage, about six twists, so when it hits the marble floor doesn’t shatter.”
“Usually we have a guest ring the bell, everyone turns around, crowd goes wild, and goes pop. Voila! It’s a clean cut.” So tell us something about what happens when it doesn’t go off as hoped, planned. “It happened actually three times, since we opened out of hundreds of bottles that we saber. If there’s imperfection in the glass, like an air bubble, the bottle implodes. The idea is to slide through and then hit the glass. Sometimes if the glass is not Italian glass or French Champagne, it shatters. It happens sometimes. It’s happened a couple of times. Champagne doesn’t stain, so we’re all good,” Mahdavian laughed. “That’s why I wear the glasses. Let me find the top for you. This is the souvenir that everyone gets, a paper weight for your office.
Being at the Trump Internatioinal Hotel DC is like being in the Eiffel tower. If you like old school luxury, like being waited on, catered to, then you’ll like being at the Trump Hotel DC.
