Club Openings: Two For the Road
Bungalow embraces its inner cockney, while Peter Gatien starts the party (hold the monster).
Matthew Strmiska
December 10, 2007
By Ken Scrudato
BUNGALOW 8, LONDON
bungalow8london.com
New York trying to export nightlife to London is sort of like Chrysler telling Mercedes how to build cars. But B8 is a brand with the sort of bang that even the jaded Brits can properly appreciate. The concept of mutual beneficence is in full flower here: St. Martin’s Lane, once the magnet for pretty people, has been eclipsed by about 20 other London boutique hotels, so could benefit from the new buzz. And Amy Sacco, a virgin to Blighty nightlife, surely cannot mind the inn’s built-in, jet-set crowd. Sacco insists the posh, Swarovski-designed interior will be mostly packed with VIPs. Yet chic Londoners do bore terribly, terribly easily.
CIRCA, TORONTO
circatoronto.com
Gatien, inside Circa, above.
Certainly, you won’t find anyone promoting sainthood for Peter Gatien. But absolutely no one was a more overblown target of Rudy Giuliani’s ruthless lifestyle wars in the ‘90s. Now the former New York nightlife mastermind, famous for his eyepatch and now-legendary bat caves like Limelight, Tunnel, and Palladium, is snubbing New York City by opening what is sure to be the next generation super-club up in the Great White North. Of course, at 55,000 square feet, “colossal” might be the right word. Expect a multimedia, multi-sensory overload, with art installations, film events, podcasting facilities, and, hopefully, if a bit of the old Limelight magic reappears, lots of clubbers dressed like pirates and angels (don’t say “Angel,” though, around Gatien—look it up). And, with any luck, there’s no evil nemesis in that city’s mayor’s office.
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