It might have been thin on celebs, but the American Express Experience dinner on Monday night was a feast of good company in a gorgeous venue.
The American financial company, which partners with Nedbank locally, held the event at gallery Art It Is in the Joburg suburb of Parkwood to tell us more about its lifestyle and banking offering.
Sipping G&Ts outside the gallery, I meet the newly installed local head, Chris Wood, who says that his first task after being promoted three days before was to attend to a customer's complaint.
"I think we dealt with it beautifully," he says.
We get chatting about what makes Amex so sought after the world over, and Chris opens up his wallet to show off that mythical black card, telling me that while his is a dummy version there are about 100 floating around in South Africa out of a pool of roughly 17,000 globally.
While the company won't disclose who is part of that ultimate club, this is an invitation-only piece of metal, not plastic, which means the holders are more your Ruperts and Motsepes than AKAs and Nyovests.
Someone who makes no bones about wishing to join is our MC for the evening, Andile Khumalo, who is the last to arrive for the event, turning up in his gleaming BMW 7-Series having just finished his Power98.7 radio show.
Inside the gallery, the art on the walls are complemented by the dinner decor, which sees us seated in stylish Perspex Ghost chairs at tables tastefully set with candles and bowls of white hyacinths and hydrangeas...