A sign (and party) for all seasons.

An image of staggered grass blades fissuring the cement inspired one of Kingswood's decorators, Jay Bearden (hired by owners/designers Nick Mathers and Lincoln Pilcher). Unruly nature skulks into the eclectic Aussie restaurant and bar upon each stumble-step; see our gallery for a closer perspective. During the day, the ceiling-high front windows reflect a soft green light from the lush garden across 10th Street. But the plants inside possess less the dripping sensuality of a ripened rose, and more the simple beauty of a twig or spray. Juxtaposed against the geometrically framed sky and reflected in antiqued mirrors, Bearden manages to highlight the beauty of a dry shrub.

Bringing the “pub”-lic back into the club.

Andre Lazarev’s Moomia Lounge, on Lafayette Street in SoHo, buries a pharaonic crypt under an eastern kasbah. (See our gallery of the scene.) While the venue’s offerings of food, drink, and hookah are not unique, the architectural periods represented are: a hybrid of 20th-century styles. That is, 20th centuries A.D. and B.C., with both contemporary Moroccan and ancient Egyptian décor in the house.

Everyone loves red when it comes to a nightspot. It’s even more appealing when you roll over the visual imagery while pronouncing the perfect-sounding French word to describe it: “rouge.” The Moulin Rouge, of course, inspired the great underground graphic art by Toulouse Lautrec, where in the seedy dark underbelly of the cabaret smoke and dinge, the artist captured a whole universe of culture, or rather, sub-culture. Now the Moulin Rouge is just a tourist trap in the “red”-light district of Paris, while Le Poisson Rouge, a new music cabaret on Bleecker Street (see gallery), starts from the beginning and swims back to those late 19th-century Parisian nights.

No room for VIPs at this very important place.