The electron-withdrawing amide group causes problems in the diastereoselective functionalisation of enolates derivedfrom atropisomeric phenyl esters, but a strategy based on atroposelective nucleophilic addition to a chiral aldehyde followed by stereospecific [3,3] sigmatropicrearrangement allows atropisomeric naphthamides to be used as auxiliaries. The auxiliaries are resolved by dynamic resolution