The successful bidders of a $1 million auction lot earlier this year at the annual Naples Winter Wine Festival fundraising festivities will enjoy a luxurious return on their generous investments this week at Butcher Private in North Naples. 

Forty couples each bid $25,000 for the rare opportunity to enjoy a private dinner Tuesday night at the new members-only business club at 2380 Vanderbilt Beach Road. “We are preparing for a spectacular event,” said Veljko Pavicevic, co-founder of Butcher Private with his wife, Corinne Ryan. 

During February’s 23rd annual wine festival auction—where the Naples Children & Education Foundation event raised a record $25.6 million for nearly 50 nonprofit organizations supporting underprivileged and at-risk children in Collier County—Lot 32: Million Dollar Meal promised a unique dining opportunity at Butcher Private, which quietly launched this spring after an intense interior transformation of the former Agave and Uno restaurants in North Naples. 

“The evening begins with a festive cocktail reception followed by a multi-course meal paired with fine wines from around the world,” the lot description reads. 

Of course, this description of one of the largest auction lots doesn’t fully prepare guests for the lavish dining experience, which begins with an open-air champagne garden created for the event. 

“It’s quite an impressive event,” Pavicevic said. “The whole evening is about six hours. It’s structured from the arrival, the garden, the entertainment, selection of the wines from arrival with Cristal and the champagne garden to caviar and then, in the club, dinner structured and organized by the team and Chef Holuss.” 

Before recently joining Sails and Butcher as chef de cuisine, Rajkumar “Raj” Holuss was chef de cuisine at St. Regis Hotel in Vancouver, head chef at Roux at Skindles in England, and sous chef at the Waterside Inn, a United Kingdom venue with the longest-standing three Michelin star restaurant in the world. Holuss is originally from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation off Madagascar. 

“And then a huge feature of the evening is limitless availability and tasting of the Grange 2018 100-point wine in our wine room. Penfolds shipped a 16-liter $450,000 hand-cut crystal decanter that will be the first time showcased in the United States and free-flowing 2018 Grange 100 points,” Pavicevic said. 

The elevated experience showcases Naples on a world stage. The master distiller of William Grant & Sons is flying into town for the experience to feature the oldest bottle of scotch ever released from The Balvenie Distillery in Scotland, he said. 

“You know, Balvenie is quite impressive. It’s a lifetime in a bottle,” he said. “The showcase is huge, but to have that bottle in the club—that’s one of the three locations in the world, one of the 21 worldwide, so it’s really, really impressive. To have a master distiller, anyone who is in a Scotch world to have opportunity to meet the master distiller, the one who actually started with Balvenie in 1960, and this was one of the first casks that he created. So, it’s a legacy of a life and what the brand became over 60 years and for us to get something like this is extremely rare and, you know, the bottle is valued at about $450,000. A single bottle has the value of the Royce Royce—and we have it in Naples.” 

For many dinner guests, this may be their only opportunity to experience Butcher, which caps its exclusive membership at 300. Although initially conceived as an upscale public steakhouse, Butcher evolved before opening into an incomparable private venue. Creating this unique experience was extremely challenging, Pavicevic said. 

“Everything is bespoke. Everything is custom-created,” he said. “It took three years because everything is bespoke—from the marble to the white French oak to the top-of-the-line leather craftsmanship in the world to collecting hundreds of hand-cut crystal European decanters and creating infusions. That’s just madness on its own.” 

Members have their own individually designed crystal decanters on shelves behind the bar. 

“Currently the largest collection of hand-cut crystal decanters in Florida, possibly the U.S,” Pavicevic said. “The bigger part is that no one in the world has done what we’ve done so far: All of these decanters are utilized for infusions and tinctures. Every decanter is created per member.” 

Butcher features different concepts under one roof. The main dining room is fed by a steakhouse with a top-notch chef, while Butcher’s wine room can host private dinner parties, serving as a chef’s table experience with multiple courses.  

“The dining experience is bespoke, created just for the guest or, in this case, a member and their guests,” Pavicevic said. “We had to build a state-of-the-art, dry-aging room at Butcher Private. To what extent do we go for the process? We searched the whole United States to find a farm that breeds 100%—not crossbred—100% Tajima original grade from Japan.” 

The Japanese Black cattle—the most expensive and sought-after Kobe beef in the world—were traced to Miller Wagyu Ranch, a family-owned and operated fullblood wagyu beef and cattle farm in Illinois. “To find this farm was a mission impossible,” he said. 

Pavicevic and Ryan also own and operate Sails Restaurant on Fifth Avenue South. While both of their venues are visually striking with incredible attention to detail, Sails has more of a lighter, coastal look, while Butcher is definitely darker with black being the dominant color. 

“That was exactly the goal,” Paicevic said. “It’s opposites.” 

That extends to the dark cabinets lining nearly the entire interior of Butcher with more than 20,000 bottles of wine. 

While not wanting to get specific about membership costs for the private club, Pavicevic mentions different tiers. “There are multiple levels of membership or the forums within the group. Like, we have an amazing wine forum within the club. Those wine club members are extremely well-traveled individuals with sizable wine collections.” 

Twelve founding members have access to every part of the club, including an exclusive wine cellar that provides an ultimate escape—“where the business Olympians come to relax in a space of impeccable service and product excellence and refresh their mind,” Pavicevic said. 

“The founding cellar is really something, the most impressive I have ever seen in the state of Florida. Why? Because it feels like an underground cellar, but it’s above the ground and it’s hosting 11,000 bottles of wine.” 

Butcher was created as a hub for the business community. 

“We’re so lucky in Naples, Florida, that we have more CEOs and founders of companies per capita than anywhere else in the world. So, Butcher creates a space where the high-performance individuals in the world of business can feel comfortable and connect with one another.” 

But Butcher also benefits hospitality Olympians who can experience an on-the-job opportunity to connect and engage with this high level of business. Butcher and Sails employ a total of 120. 

“The number one biggest challenge was curating a team like this that found all the hospitality professionals—I like to call them hospitality Olympians—and bring them into our community,” Pavicevic said. “That’s what happened with me. Ritz-Carlton opened up those opportunities for me because I had that mindset growth and constantly improving and learning and curiosity. That’s really what got me here.” 

A native of Montenegro, Pavicevic first came to Naples as a foreign exchange student at Naples High School. Living proof of the American dream, he is a huge proponent of the United States, which he calls the greatest country in the world. 

“That’s what’s so exciting about Butcher Private. This community will change the lives of others, and I love giving these opportunities to upcoming kids in a generation,” he said. 

Although the majority of the community will not have regular access to Butcher, the upscale venue will host events for local charities that benefit the entire community. “This will bring tremendous value back to the community,” Pavicevic said. 

Pavicevic also is quick to say he owes his personal success to his wife, who was the international meat purveyor behind Butcher’s concept. 

“Everyone asked me what’s the secret to success. I tell them it’s not really me. Ninety-nine percent is Corrine. She’s the powerhouse,” he said, noting that she belies the stereotypical butcher. 

The couple also plans to launch a third venue next summer. Sava restaurant, expected to focus on food as medicine, is under construction next to Sails in downtown Naples.