BlackBook Magazine

And you thought Connecticut was all Talbot sweaters and tennis on Tuesdays. In fact, not only is Bridgeport America’s #1 destination for violent crime, but good old CT even has its own little version of Sin City. And as of May 17, the Foxwoods Resort Casino, perennial host to Cheap Trick reunions, dwindling comedy careers, and couples desperately trying to rekindle the magic, gets a luxurious new MGM Grand -- 825 pricey rooms, a 4000-seat theater, and a 5500-square-foot-outdoor pool. (Size doesn’t matter? Please.) And NY chef extraordinaire Tom Colicchio adds to his crafty dining empire here with a swanky new branch of Craftsteak. Management likens the new partnership to the airline alliance trend. Only here, it’s the customers who will be plunging into bankruptcy. Mommy’s alright, daddy’s alright ...

Following a recent onslaught of trendy everythings in the once scruffy Czech capital, comes now a pair of gleaming 21st Century hotels. The sleek new 305-room Hilton Prague Old Town flaunts David Collins interiors inspired by Czech Modernism and Cubism, as well as an outpost of London’s Maze eatery, Gordon Ramsay’s first foray into the East. And the new Imperial Hotel, an Art Deco masterpiece that had faded into a grubby but weirdly opulent student flop, has just been glamorously gussied up.

Whether or not Interpol’s Carlos D and/or The Horrors can claim all the credit, it’s certainly hip to be Goth again. So it’s fitting that the world’s most fashionable city pay homage to history’s most enduringly sexy beast. Jacques Sirgent, France’s premier practitioner of Dracophilia, has now opened Musée des Vampires, his vampiric stash to all the macabre-hearted and Kohl-painted amongst the living. His salaciously creepy collection ranges from film posters to costumes and weapons; and private tours might include parlour games, discussions (no doubt many regarding the virtues of the new Bauhaus record), and even dinner parties—though you might want to scrutinize le vin rouge before imbibing.

No city in the world has been trod upon by so many art/film/whatever poseurs without ceding an inch of its character or dignity as has the beloved and mysterious Venezia. No surprise, then, that it’s most bleeding edge contemporary art museum, Palazzo Grassi, should be housed in a grandiose 18th Century palace. Its new neighboring and namesake boutique hotel’s sexy, austere furnishings are an apt complement to the futurism of the art, but neo-classical details, as well as Venetian lighting fixtures and fabrics, terrazzo floors and glass mosaics, keep the hotel firmly rooted in Venice’s unshakeable romantic historicism.

Bungalow embraces its inner cockney, while Peter Gatien starts the party (hold the monster).

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.

And the mother of all new luxuries. Off with whose head?

TALLINN, ESTONIA
tallinn.ee/eng

A river view of Tallinn, Estonia, above.

Estonia is officially the most wired nation in the world, and with that comes all the free-market fervor old Soviets were always sniffing at. Its buzzing capital is split exactingly between its utterly charming, spit-polished medieval Old Town, with a stylish café or bohemian bar on virtually every corner, and its modern City Centre, with designer shopping and lots of sleek, occidental upscale nightlife. Chic hotels (Merchant House, The Telegraaf, the sublime Three Sisters) are swiftly proliferating. If it helps, imagine an entire city being Nolita. but with excellent Russian food and affable locals. —Ken Scrudato

BlackBook asked some of the world's finest photographers to take us to their favorite views. Oh, the sights you'll see.

Photo by Alex Tehrani
Check out some photos

Would you buy a chunk of riverfront property in New Mexico from this man? He keeps Marlon Brando’s spirit alive at his own Tetiaroa, where his plan for a residential “eco-community-complete with ValZone products-may be coming our way. Joan Didion inner-tubing? Tom Ford stoking the campfire? Julian Schnabel manning the kiln? Lou Reed feeding… chickens? Chickens? What’s not to like? Steve Garbarino says: Send over the papers.

One week after an unflattering photograph of Val Kilmer circulated in the tabloids—earning the actor the nickname “Fatman” in gossip columns everywhere—the formerly swivel-hipped actor who played the rubber-encased Caped Crusader in Batman Forever and the leather-laced Jim Morrison in The Doors, asked me to come visit him at his summer rental in the security-gated Malibu Colony, where the bare-midriff picture had been taken.

“Come out to Val-ibu, in sunny Val-ifornia,” Kilmer said, sounding confident, almost breezy. It is customary for the current co-star of Déjà Vu and the upcoming CBS mini-series Comanche Moon to send up his self-obsessed movie idol image with friends. (“Enough about me, let’s talk about me” is a common refrain; as is his conversation-stopper, “But back to me...”)

A couple of years ago, during one of Kilmer’s more curious career junctures, in which he played 1980s porn star John Holmes in the procedural crime film Wonderland, and an emoting Moses in the theatrical spectacle The Ten Commandments: The Musical, we had met each other, laughed a great deal, and continued speaking regularly. Kilmer said he had a grand plan that he wanted to discuss—something about “an eco-village,” “a self-sustaining community,” the Newman’s Own franchise, and… Mark Twain.