"Mr Tansley,"I'm informed as I walk through the glass doors."How did you know?"I ask,but no-one's giving away the secret. I'm surrounded immediately upon sitting under a three-tiered chandelier by staff in white dinner suits,pouring fine French wine,popping champagne corks and presenting caviar,lobster cakes,truffles,rare beef and other treats gathered from all corners of the sprawling Trump empire.
Despite this omnipresent ensemble of fancy folk and their even fancier fare – and amid a Christ-era Roman feast/ orgy comprising endless bottles of fortune-fancy European wines and rare gastronomical delights whose ingredients taste nothing like they do when anyone else cooks them – Sixteen somehow manages to negate that infamous Trump ego and remove the pretence from what could be a Tom Wolfe-devised Masters Of The Universe setting. I'm finding this is a common characteristic in Trump International Hotel&Tower:you're consistently taken to the point where things become a little over-the-top,but you're never… quite… tipped over the edge.
After the feast,I sleep in a bed that's wider than it is long (important for power CEOs who like to mix things up by sleeping cross-wise,to keep their edge). In the morning,I press the button to my automatic curtains and open up the white world I control below me.
In slippers embossed with T-R-U-M-P,I pace the length of my suite surveying the minions below me and think about the man who created everything around me.
God help us all if he becomes president,but the bloke sure knows how to make excess feel like it fits you like a glove,even if only for a night.
TRIP NOTES
GETTING THERE
Qantas offers direct flights from Sydney,Melbourne and Brisbane to LA and onward connections to Chicago with code-share partner American Airlines.qantas.com.au
STAYING THERE
Trump International Hotel&Tower offers deluxe and executive guestrooms,spa guestrooms and deluxe and grand deluxe suites,starting at $US375 per night. Seetrumphotelcollection.com/chicago/,and for more on Sixteen seesixteenchicago.com.