A Seasonal 'Curated Table' for Belmond at Michelle Rago's Home in New Jersey

EVENTS | HAPPENINGS | WORLD OF CABANA

Celebrating the abundance of late-summer New Jersey, a dinner at Michelle Rago’s Lambertville home brought together family history, local produce and Italian culinary artistry. For Belmond’s A Curated Table, designer David Stark transformed Michelle's garden with a profusion of heirloom Jersey tomatoes, creating an unforgettable evening rooted in place, friendship and the pleasure of gathering.

BY TEAM CABANA | HAPPENINGS | 27 SEPTEMBER 2026

A gathering for Belmond's A Curated Table series at the Lambertville home of designer Michelle Rago, featuring dinner napkins embroidered by Michelle's sister, Pamela © Corbin Gurkin. 

By early September, New Jersey tomatoes have reached their most excessive state. Warm from the sun, heavy in the hand and full of juice, they seem to contain the entire summer within them. For a vibrant, colorful dinner for Belmond's 'A Curated Table' series, held at Michelle Rago’s Lambertville home, the tomato became the ingredient, decoration and family history, filling the designer's garden with every possible shade of red.

For the late summer dinner's unique design, renowned designer and event producer David Stark treated Michelle's garden as both stage and still life, shaping the evening's atmosphere from the moment guests arrived. Rather than adding flowers to an already abundant garden, he took the Jersey tomato and repeated it with joyful insistence.

A striking centerpiece of Jersey tomatoes in scarlet, orange, yellow, green and deep burgundy sat among patterned Sicilian china and taper candles, spilling down the table in a composition that felt lavish but entirely natural. Nearby, hundreds more covered a low circular platform, forming a great red pool within the garden: a witty, whimsical design that captured the particular pleasure of a tomato at the height of its season.

For Michelle and her family, the Jersey tomato carries a deeper history. Her cousin David Rago’s grandparents kept a small, owner-operated farm in Hamilton, New Jersey, where his grandfather, and his Italian farming companion, Cosmo, developed a hybrid of their own. David remembers tomatoes the size of small melons, with knuckled green-brown shoulders and flesh of the deepest red-orange. That memory of family, soil and summer gave the evening its heart. The tomatoes covering David Stark’s table were beautiful, but they also belonged there, connecting the meal to New Jersey and the Rago family.

Designer Bryan O’Sullivan, known for his work at Claridge’s, has transformed Michelle’s house into a sequence of warm, richly layered rooms where art selected in collaboration with Cheryl Hazan Gallery hangs among antiques and objects gathered over time. The garden, by landscape designer Brian Gulbrandsen, reflects Michelle’s belief that a garden should support both hospitality and privacy. A stone path opens onto the garden's principal entertaining space, where a custom granite dining table carved from a single monolithic slab – the setting for the evening's feast – seats 16 beneath a row of London Plane trees.

The night began with a limited-edition Jersey tomato martini created by Via Carota, whose founders, chefs Jody Williams and Rita Sodi, are close friends of Michelle’s, while Eric from Lambertville’s The Swan tended the bar, adding another local thread to the evening.

From further afield, chef Armando Aristarco, executive chef of Caruso, A Belmond Hotel on the Amalfi Coast in Ravello, Italy, prepared a menu that moved between the Delaware River Valley and southern Italy. He began with la scarola, combining escarole with anchovies, pine nuts, olives and capers. Next came il risotto, prepared with tomatoes and olive oil from Cilento. For the main course, Aristarco served la spigola, pairing snapper with a fish broth reduction, tomatoes and parsnip root. Dessert was il limone, a composition of sablé, lemon mousse, meringue and the fragrant Sfusato Amalfitano I.G.P. lemon of the Amalfi Coast.

Michelle’s own team worked alongside the Stockton Market team, carrying plates through the garden and keeping the evening moving with ease. Her cousin, David Rago, the evening’s impromptu sommelier, chose the wines, approaching the table as both collector and host. Two Patrick Piuze Premier Cru Chablis, Butteaux and Vaulorent, were poured alongside the earlier courses. The American reds included a 2004 Turley Petite Syrah, a 2005 Cardinale Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2004 Vincent Arroyo Petite Sirah.

The dinner marked the latest expression of A Curated Table, Michelle’s cultural partnership with Belmond. The project explores hospitality through the distinct character of place. Here, in Michelle’s own garden, the idea felt especially personal. The landscape, menu, wines and guest list were connected by friendship and professional collaboration.

Around the table were Rebecca Grinnals, founder of ENGAGE!, Lambertville Mayor Andrew Nowick, Suzanne Perrault, partner at Rago Auctions and a longtime appraiser on Antiques Roadshow, Danny Seo, stylist Carrie Goldberg, Kathryn Arce, Ross Belfer, and Michelle Mariani of Belmond. Surprise guests Brian Henke and Michael Holcomb brought another design-minded perspective to the evening; both are avid curators of personal spaces and currently breathing new life into their 1750s farmhouse.

Rebecca Grinnals, Michelle Mariani, David Stark and Carrie Goldberg © Corbin Gurkin.

As the candles burned lower, the gathering moved to 'The Zebra', Michelle’s 'Dance Shack' in the garden. The former garage has been transformed into a place for music and cocktails, with enough informality to encourage even the most reluctant guest onto the floor. From the first tomato martini to David Stark’s extraordinary tablescape, from family stories and old vintages to the last dance, the evening carried Michelle’s unmistakable sense of hospitality. 

Across the water from her reimagined 1924 Sears & Roebuck Craftsman residence lies New Hope, Pennsylvania. Together, the two towns sit within a region that has long attracted artists, collectors, writers and designers in search of life beyond New York and Philadelphia.