Shanghai's Bund, which runs along the river and divides the city's former international section (with its old world architecture) from Pudong, with its intergalactic hyper-futuristic architecture, isn't a place for subtlety. This divide makes it a place for big statements, particularly of the fashionable variety, which is why this is where you find the city's big name restaurants (Jean Georges, M on the Bund), major international designers and so on. And it made it an entirely logical neighborhood for Chinese restaurateurs South Beauty Group to select for the Shanghai edition of the LAN Club, following on the 2006 success of its Beijing launch, which was designed by Phillipe Starck.

LAN Shanghai, designed by Patrick Gilles and Dorothee Boissier. opened in a historic building just off the Bund last summer, and it's not about subtlety, no, not even a little bit. Its four floors that put me in mind of the clubs that I used to encounter as a teenager in 1980s New York: an adult version of a theme park. There's a dance club, and several bars, and each floor is home to a different restaurants or, if you will, dining concepts, and they've changed a bit since opening. What was once a Chinese restaurant on the first floor has become O-Supper Club, which is doing a Chinese/Tapas fusion. (This sounds more interesting than it tastes); the French restaurant on the fourth floor had a new name, Papillion, named for the 400 butterfly specimens displayed on its walls. And that's not to forget a seafood restaurant, adorned with an aquarium of living jelly fish, an atrium-like space with a wall of plants, and a full floor of VIP private dining rooms, because in a crowded country, it's luxurious to go to a restaurant to be seen and then have total privacy.

One of these rooms, the Art and Banquet Hall, is meant to accommodate a group, and it is genuinely, no-gimmicks impressive: it was designed around the Liu Ziaodong painting, Migrants of the Three Gorges. It's some 30 feet in width, and was, for a time, the most costly work by a contemporary Chinese artist sold at auction. But favorite space was "La Terrace", the lounge on the roof, which opened this past July. It's view of Pudong and the Bund isn't unobstructed, but I rather liked the Shanghai peep show effect, which was enhanced by the pimp-my-ride lit tables.

Ownership is a double-edged sword -- it's yours, and you loved it enough to buy it. But if you're bored, or something goes wrong, or you just want a change, you may sometimes wish you could give it back and try something else. If you're in the NYC - NJ - LI metro area, you can do this with luxury cars by joining Vulcan Motor Club. Founded in 2007, the club focuses on "placing a select fleet of the world's most prestigious high-performance and luxury vehicles at your disposal." Membership tiers vary from a $1,240/one-time 5-hour drive to a $28,800/year plan that allows 40 days of annual use and 40,000 annual miles with access to the full fleet of 12 cars, with several membership levels in between. You can get in touch for more info, and also check out Vulcan's blog.

A Hong Kong-based company is offering memberships in what is billed as the world's most expensive private club for $15.2 million apiece. Only 100 Charter Corporate Platinum Memberships in the Richman's IMC (International Millionaire's Club) will be available worldwide, good for 30 years. The whopping fee is justified by its being an an "all-access, first-class VIP pass" to megayachts, yacht clubs, jockey clubs, country clubs, golf courses, ski resorts, gentlemans clubs, supper clubs, luxury hotels and restaurants around the globe, eliminating the need for multiple memberships.

You also get the right to own and race horses at China's Royal Nanjing Jockey Club, where prizes run to the millions; confidential concierge and problem resolution services including 24-hour international emergency medical assistance; global executive travel assistance; personal bodyguards, travel guides and elite escorts worldwide; and the ability to charge expenses to an exclusive global biometrics-protected club card with a $1 million credit line. It all sounds incredibly ambitious considering there's an international recession on.

[via JustLuxe]

A new nightclub in London, twentyfour: london, is designed to appeal to the high-tech "wouldn't it be great if holodecks were real" side of the population: it has walls that can change and morph into whatever you want them to be, via projection technology. A canyon? You got it. A beautiful beach at midnight? You got that too. Want to ogle models strutting the catwalk? No problem. You can even bring in your own videos and pictures, so it really is "whatever you want."

Other features the high-tech nightclub offer include drinks that notify the bartender when they're empty and interactive experiences like a virtual koi pond.

Via A Luxury Travel Blog

All golfers dream of playing on the best courses around the world, but only a few actually get to experience it. Although "the best" is a subjective term when it comes to golf courses (you'll get slightly different results looking at different lists), there's one thing that comes straight down to numbers: price. How much do you currently pay for a round of golf? $500? Probably not, unless you play regularly at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, NV, the most expensive golf course in the world. Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, CA ($475) and Old Head Golf Links in Kinsale, Ireland ($400) round out the top three on the list of the world's most expensive golf courses. What do you think? Are they worth it?

The omission of words can be just as powerful as the addition of them. So when I say that I'm going to go enjoy a cocktail at a bar while the college superbowl whatever-it's-called is going on, I mean exactly that. What a perfect time to go out and enjoy a nice glass of scotch and a cigar; the bars won't be crowded because Johnny Sportsfan will be watching some team that isn't UT play some other team. Meanwhile, it's the perfect time for me to sip a glass of Johnnie Blue Label and not be bothered. While it may seem like a superficial semantic argument, it also reflects on our society turning away from classic bars to hybrid drinking establishments - some with their 60" plasma TVs with the ESPN logo burned in to them, and others filled with loud techno music and females who apparently haven't paid for a drink in their life. Though the cocktail was born in either Boston or New Orleans (I'd prefer to think Boston) and was perfected in the time of prohibition, it's hard to find a quality bar in America these days. I can think of two (VBar, Cohiba) in this city, maybe a half dozen in the metropolitan area I'm originally from (the bar at Mac's is a personal favorite), but that doesn't really count for much. Sure, there are plenty of real bars in New York, but The City has plenty of everything. I was in Paris a couple of years ago, and it was hard to not find a nice bar. I just think it's sad that the place where the cocktail was born no longer honors it, and those who truly take pleasure in what they drink are forced to do so with people who drink for sport. So, do any Luxist readers care to share what real bars still exist that they frequent?

Speaking of exclusive and members' only bars in Sydney, De Nom is another one that Sydneysiders looking for luxury might by interested in checking out. It is located on the third floor of Ruby Rabbit in Darlinghurst and it "represents a new era of decadence for Sydney." The room is modeled after the Palace of Versailles and has a capacity of only 80 people, who will be attended by "bartenders in bow ties" and "waitresses in ball gowns" while they lounge on gilded furniture. Only 100 memberships were made available at $10,000AUD each. They're probably sold out by now, but the lucky members receive wait-free entrance to the club, a private car and driver to take them to and from the venue, access to a members' only wine list, and use of the room for one private function each year on top of other benefits, not to mention that the membership card is solid gold and encrusted with rubies.

[Thanks, Tom!]

The Canlis Restaurant, a Seattle institution has now launched the Canlis Wine & Whisky Society. A $300 per year membership gets you in to the club which includes custom etched Riedel stemware, access to a members-only wine and whisky list comprised, early access to Canlis wine and whisky events and personal access to the restaurant's eight sommeliers as well as Matt Canlis -- the restaurant's official chaplain and personal Whisky Consultant and a minister living in Scotland. The family's ties to Scotland have resulted in them having an inside track to creating the country's rarest single malt whisky collections including some bottles which have been hand carried back from Scotland. A good deal for Seattle-based whisky aficionados.

Car clubs are everywhere lately. The latest place? Evansville, Indiana. The LuxShare Auto Club is a new club which will use a points system, selling shares which will cost  $7,250 to $9,000 per year. The club is located at the Buxton Motorsports Plaza. Their first purchase was the new Porsche Cayman S and they have their eye on adding a Ferrari, a Rolls Royce and a Bentley to the stable. There will even be a pickup truck for weekend chores. They are looking to have only around 50 members with one vehicle for every three or four people. 

[via The Gleaner]