Everyone's taking notice of a rich guy who's apparently trying to single-handedly save the nightlife industry and give leggy models everywhere something to do. His name is Taek Jho Low, a 20-something Wharton grad who loves Cristal.
Economic meltdown or not, certain nightclubs still seem to be blessed with celebrities who will show up for free drinks, supermodels who will show up for the celebrities, and billionaires who will show up for the supermodels, black Amex cards at the ready. We know this thanks to writer and costume-lover Hud Morgan, who bravely traded his fruitinis for passionfruit shots and infiltrated 1OAK on behalf of Men's Vogue (a scan is after the jump). Illustrating how magazine publishers, too, are defying the recession and financing the posher forms of writerly hobnobbing.
♦ Table 8 inside the Cooper Square Hotel isn't expected to open for another two months, but that didn't stop chef Govind Armstrong from giving a preview to 60 guests at hotelier Klaus Ortlieb's Tribeca loft last night. [NYO]
♦ The opening night of Tom Colicchio's Tuesday Dinner, went off without a hitch: Tom prepared a nine-course menu for 28 guests without breaking a sweat, and his wife showed up for moral support. [Forbes]
♦ Is 1OAK over? Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's club is now sending our email blasts asking to host your next party. [NYO]
Meet Daniel "Maimon" Kirschenbaum, Esq. He's only 29—he graduated law school in 2005—but it's safe to say that if the James Beard Foundation gave out an award to the biggest thorn in the side of New York-area restaurateurs, he'd rank up there with inspectors from the Department of Health and ungenerous restaurant critics. Kirschenbaum is a partner at a firm called Joseph & Herzfeld and the go-to man for servers and other restaurant employees when they take on their bosses for skimming tips or firing them without cause. Thanks to word of mouth (and well-placed ads on certain websites), Kirshenbaum has been obscenely prolific in the past couple of years. Just a few of his targets: Heartland Brewery, Nobu, Jean Georges, B.B. King, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, One Little W 12, Abigail Kirsch, BLT Steak, BLT Prime, BLT Fish, and 40/40.
Nightclub 1 Oak, which has been accused of reacting with total indifference to a gay-bashing incident and of allowing an alleged assailant to escape untouched, is now saying it tried to stop the attacker. Reports the Post: "Club sources say the night was not promoted as a 'gay night' and that the attacker was restrained by security but broke away." The club's flacks are also now saying that "this incident was handled by security and staff immediately," which was not mentioned in their statement to us yesterday. That differs sharply from what one eyewitness told us yesterday:
It's been a bad couple of weeks for Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's 1OAK. First Diddy's Maybach was (supposedly) smashed outside. Then, rather suspiciously, precisely the same thing (supposedly) happened to Paolo Zampolli's Rolls a week later. Yesterday, there were rumors of a drug raid, which turned out to be false. Today brings news of a gay bashing. Lesson to be learned: Stay away from the club if you're not straight, you own a cheesy car worth more than $500,000, or if you have any sense whatsoever.
When the Meatpacking District club 1 Oak opened in December, it was the toast of the Manhattan nightlife scene. It was founded by a quartet of club veterans including Butter frontman Richie Akiva , Lotus co-owner Jeffrey Jah, and former Ashley Olsen boyfriend Scott Sartiano as a "kind of boutique space" for the elite. But a tipster tells us that everything is not well at 1 Oak; last week, they say, there was a vicious gay-bashing incident in the club—forcing one victim to go to the hospital—that club management tried to sweep under the rug. The eyewitness' full account of the violence, and the club's response to our questions, after the jump.
This one was too good to relegate to the map. Plus it's pretty long so it might show up funky. Behold: at a Tribeca Film Fest after party, we've got Rachel Dratch longing to be back on TV, Nikki "Hairspray" Blonski, Spencer Breslin, Heidi Montag and Spencer Twat trying to control who looks at them, and Ally Sheedy looking ancient. Sighting after the jump, old school Gawker Stalker style.
