Darin Rubell is transforming the Lower East Side, one arts and culture venue at a time. The owner of Gallery Bar and Ella (opened last fall with partners Josh and Jordan Boyd) is no stranger to the ins and outs of nightlife. Let's just say it runs in the family -- his cousin is legendary Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell.

Alan Philips and Josh Shames are founders of SKY Group and Deluxe Experience. Their clients include One Group (STK), Gerber Group (Whiskey Bar), Morgans Hotel Group (Hudson, Royalton, The Shore Club), Borgata Hotel, Brier Group (Highbar) ... the list goes on.

What are your favorite places in the world?
Alan Philips: Sushi of Gari. They have the freshest fish, simply and creatively prepared, in understated surroundings. I don't think that there is anywhere you can experience something as delicious and unexpected as the salmon tomato onion sushi. Bagatelle has incredible energy and music, very New York. I recently had the pleasure of staying and experiencing the newest Morgans Hotel in Miami, Mondrian Miami. Marcel Wanders has designed a spectacular hotel that captures the surprise and whimsy that you first felt when entering the Delano 20 years ago.
Josh Shames: The Box is an amazing New York experience, and I've never felt the energy from a nightclub that I have felt at Palladium in Acapulco, Mexico. 2000-plus people, with floor-to-ceiling glass walls over looking the Acapulco bay. As for restaurants, the China Club in Hong Kong or Il Latini in Florence, Italy, are the two of my favorite dining experiences. If I had a last meal, then it would be Don Pepe's in Ozone Park.

A new generation of young professionals are making their way up the club ranks and will -- in the not so distant future -- be running things. Jonathan Schwartz comes to mind over at Strategic Group, as well as today’s girl on the spot Ms. Lindsay Luv. For a very long time, creative types were locked out of nightlife as the business boys broke down fun into pie charts and spreadsheets. For many, it was indeed the fun that broke down. Lindsay Luv is upwardly mobile, and as my good friend Voula would sometimes say: unstoppable. But before we get to Lindsay, I’d like to comment on a very big story that's percolating around town -- the "continuing closing" of Socialista.

About damn time.

Friday
1. 1Oak (Chelsea) - Cool rules the door at this lavish new hot spot.
2. Ella (East Village) - Deco blacks and whites glamming up lower Avenue A.
3. GoldBar (Nolita) - Gold is the new black.

I haven’t had sex in eight months. To be honest, I now prefer to go bowling. -- Lil' Kim

Lucky Strike Lanes, an ultra-hip bowling lounge, opened last night with a suave soiree' hosted by its marketing arm, the Strategic Group. I chatted up Strategic honcho Noah Tepperberg, and asked him, "Why bowling?" He replied, “Chicks and celebrities love bowling." And so it goes. Crashing pins instead of crashing bores, and if a dude strikes out while trying to impress a girl, it’s a good thing. DJ Vice could be almost heard over the pin din and squealing models. The place is posh and new and clean, and it looks to be way more sophisticated than Bowlmor, where I’ve been throwing hooks into gutters for decades.

Time for a sit-down with Brittany Mendenhall of popular nightlife blog Chichi212.com. Brittany and I met at the L Magazine nightlife awards where we were both judges. We constantly talk now, exchanging information following events and stories. Her youthful look at the scene gives you what’s happening, while I’m more involved in the why’s and what-may-happen’s.

So you're the writer, publisher ...
I’m the editor-in-chief.

Editor-in-chief, you’re the publisher, and at the end of the day you sweep out the joint. What do you write about?
It’s not really a nightlife blog ... it's more social news, events and gossip -- that’s what it is.

I was asked by my editor to compile a list of the best joints on any given night -- i.e. Mondays at Butter or Tuesdays at Rose Bar. As I travel in and enjoy many scenes, I answered the question as where you might find me on any given night. As has been pointed out constantly in the comments section, I am a flaming schizophrenic, so what I feel like doing one night might not apply a week later. That said, here are my choices, with explanations and alternatives for the left side of my brain.

There's been much ado about something going on down on Avenue A near Houston. Ella pops onto our scene, and my pal Brittany Mendenhall of Chichi212.com won’t shut up about it. It was my impression that Ella was going to be another boutique bar cum bottle boite, but then I heard that Carlton Varney had designed the place. I’m not going to tell you too much about him right now, as I’m scheduling a sit-down with this legendary designer for next week. But Mr. Varney, now in his 70s, has turned it out. Ella is wonderful -- it's Hollywood heyday chic without discounting its East Village location. Varney did the Waldorf Towers and Joan Crawford's home. I sat with Josh Boyd, Jordan Boyd, and Darin Rubell, and left convinced that there are still people out there trying to make wonderful things.

The world’s worst DJ -- yours truly -- hit the turntables Sunday night at La Zarza. The place was packed with a beautiful crowd who surprisingly didn’t leave. Usually I’m terrible, but I think I might have only been awful. With Mondays easily the best night out around town, it makes sense that the ultimate off night, Sunday, would attract A-listers searching for a place far from the maddening bridge & tunnel crowds that rule the weekends. Jamie Burke, the Calvin Klein model and Bloody Social lead singer, was pitching platters downstairs. My boy Chris Willard came on after me on the main floor. They want me back next week. They're either desperate, or deaf, or desperate and deaf.

Since emo kids veritably inverted the generation gap (meaning it’s probably cooler to be seen out with their grandparents than it is to hang out with them), maybe in some strange postmodern twist, piano bars will become hip again. Gallery Bar partners Josh & Jordan Boyd and Darren Rubell (cousin of the late Steve Rubell of Studio 54) are, in fact, banking on it. Located along the ragged borders of the East Village and LES, their nattily nostalgic new drinking establishment, Ella (opening September 17), sets out to capture the pizzazz of those roaring and raging 1920s by way of, well, just about everything (23 skidoo!).