Amy Sacco, the nightlife queen unsuccessfully trying to export her brand internationally, is closing her over-hyped and mostly terrible restaurant Bette. [Eater]
It’s adorable to watch Amy Sacco, the woman responsible for turning West 27th Street into the bridge-and-tunnel police state it has become, take a crap on New York nightlife. “Most everything’s overrated. Even I’m overrated!” [NYDN] Funny! And true! New York’s nightspots are playgrounds for bottle service and exclusivity, which has become a commodity itself, which means we get to stamp an “overrated” label on it. Case in point? Room Service, which billed itself as a lounge with all the amenities of a hotel, is heading into the crapper, and that unbearable pair of haunts, Home and Guest House, are “closed until further notice.” Sacco, meanwhile, continues to let Bungalow 8 whore itself out to those grasping on to its expired coolness factor. Oh, and she’s “developing a club at the Hard Rock in Vegas and touts London as much more interesting than NYC.” Two so very underrated destinations.
• Britney Spears blogs her defense for flashing snatch.
• TomKat throwing a wedding bash in Beverly Hills for friends who couldn’t attend the Italian wedding. Oprah still not invited.
• Jennifer Aniston’s rep Stephen Huvane wishes Perez Hilton and the rest of the celebrity blogs would leave his clients alone.
• Turns out Amy Sacco isn’t selling Bungalow 8; Spencer Morgan just embellished a little.
• That Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn were never even engaged will surely quiet down the gossip about their split.
• Joe Simpson tried insisting CBS use daughter Jessica’s mistake-laden Dolly Parton send up for the TV broadcast, but producers weren’t having it.
• VP offspring Mary Cheney is with child.
• Scientologists might have J. Lo in their traps.
• In the face of Beyonce, Jennifer Hudson acts humble.
Could the only place where Mary-Kate and Ashley feel safe enough to smile be on the auction block? After the murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore, the Bungalow 8’s West Chelsea nabe has been a veritable police state, what with those street closings and NYPD presence. So what’s a nightlife queen like Amy Sacco to do? Sell, sell, sell!
“Everybody wants to get off 27th Street, because celebrities won’t go there,” said the source.
Reached for comment on Dec. 4, Ms. Sacco amplified the chitchat. “I’m gonna do whatever I feel is necessary for myself,” said the nightlife empress, when asked if she was contemplating selling Bungalow. “But I’m not going to stay if I can’t get my customers to walk down the block.” […]
I’m this close,” she said. “I don’t need to do this. I don’t need to work for no money, and I don’t need to work in a place that doesn’t want me to work. I’m not going to start charging at the door.”
Ahem. “Work for no money?” If Lindsay, Leo, Paris, M-K & A, J. Lo, Jake, and Nicole are still dropping by, it sounds like there’s plenty of cash yet to be had, Sacco.
• Lindsay Lohan postpones date to snort coke off bathroom floor for a quick trip to AA.
• Kathy Griffin nearly dropped off the D-list and to the Death-list.
• Just as she makes so many in-roads to be a better mother, Anna Nicole gets evicted.
• Suge Knight claims Snoop Dogg never ends up in jail because he’s always willing to namedrop bigger fish.
• It’s cat and mouse for Fabian Basabe and Amy Sacco.
• Christina Aguilera has one heavy night of partying and all of a sudden she’s got to be compared to Britney Spears again.
New York nightlife queen Amy Sacco is going international chic. The diva plans to expand her Bungalow 8 empire overseas by taking the club to London — finally, a place where Kate Moss can coke out in the bathroom without anyone bothering her! Sacco cut a deal with Ian Schrager to get British Bungalow rolling in early 2007.
No word yet on whether New York’s decidedly strict doormen Armin Amiri and Disco will hop across the pond to open the place, but as Sacco likes to be present in both her club and her restaurant Bette, we hear she’ll be racking up the air mileage.
Armin and Disco definitely can’t go to London .. who the hell is going to protect the women of NYC from Mark Cuban?
• After forty years, the Harlem peirs are coming to town. [NYT]
• Amy Sacco’s old eatery, Lot 61, is being turned into an art space. Expect to see the same crowd looking about 10 pounds lighter. [Art News]
• Calling all Bushwick dwellers! Shake Shack sherpas are the new bike messengers. [NYDN]
• The government kidnapped a Columbia engineering student for their secret underground nuclear development program. Ok, we made that up — except for the kidnapped Columbia student part. [NYP]
• If your hipster co-workers rolled into work like half an hour ago, it wasn’t their fault. They were stuck on the L train. But now they’re free. [Gothamist]
The annual Spring Fashion issue of New York magazine has arrived, in honor of our city’s fabulous fashion week. While we always feel like we’re missing out on some kind of media gossip or teen sex romp with fashion or food focused NY issues, we like to think of this week as a seven day stretch where everyone in the media just ignores themselves for a hot minute.
In this week’s New York the fashion is not limited to fashion week. We have Versace, Karl Lagerfeld (who we think was the topic of last year’s spring fashion issue, too), Julianne Moore, and the auctioning of a vintage couture closet. Plus, more James Frey/JT Leroy analysis. There is a bit of news, and some restaurant reviews, but who can think about eating or thinking when there is Tom Ford to be worn?
• Summing up Versace in two words has never been easier than “Happy Hooker.” [Ask a Shop Clerk, Denise Penny]
• He’s fake, his sister’s fake, even JT Leroy’s dad is fake. Too bad only one of them is somewhat talented. [JT LeRoy’s Fake Dad Shops Tell-All, Geoffrey Gray]
• Everyone loves Karl Lagerfeld; but how ever does this magazine manage to get so many Amy Sacco quotes in its pages? Well, at least they threw a Lindsay Lohan “I want to have everything,” quote in there. [Karl Lagerfeld, Boy Prince of Fashion, Vanessa Grigoriadis]
• Damn, our mom passed down a few Tahari sweaters and Gucci purses but silk Pucci handbags from the sixties? We are begging Sandra Hamburg not to sell! [Closet Analysis, Rebecca Cascade]
• And, in case you still want to eat after that anorexia inducing fashion spread, Adam Platt brings us a decadent review of Mario Batali’s new eatery, Del Posto. [Vegas on the Hudson, Adam Platt]
• Ya gotta give credit to those wacky “Gate” keepers, Christo & Jeanne-Claude. They’re recycling the orange pipe frames holding up the shower curtains (err, we mean art) as white fence posts.
• Nightlife-cum-restaurateur Amy Sacco agreed to be civil with Gawker’s Jessica Coen at their BlackBook fashion shoot, but that doesn’t mean she prefers the gossip blog to the “99 percent of the time” accurate Page Six.
• The bad news: NYU is losing fashion challenged Mary-Kate Olsen as a coed. The good news: Amanda Bynes has signed on to keep the tween quota afloat. And Mark Graham needs a moment to himself.
• With two TV shows, Tyra Banks doesn’t have time (or youth) for the runway. Her Nov. 9 Victoria’s Secret show is expected to be her last, while Heidi Klum will make her catwalk return since ducking out to give birth.
• Elle Macpherson has her lawyers scrambling to get her out of her Blackglama contract, now that PETA has shown her how she really gets her mink coats.
• Kate Moss Watch™: If the supermodel goes to jail, she may have a familiar pen pal in ex-boyfriend Pete Doherty. Police detained the druggie rocker during a raid at his U.K. concert.
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston rang in their official divorce (as of yesterday) by unloading their Beverly Hills pad, collecting a whopping $28 million for their $13.5 million payment back in 2001.
• O.J. Simpson might be free, but the man’s broke. The acquitted ex-football star rang in the 10th anniversary of his trial’s ending by charging $95 per John Hancock at a – gasp! – horror convention.
• Brad Pitt is setting up post-summer season shop in the Hamptons for two months after Labor Day while Angelina Jolie films The Good Shepard in New York.
• Out former New Jersey governor James McGreevey may be penning a tell-all, but now he’s got former lover Golan Cipel writing his own memoir. Meanwhile, the ex-gov is playing house on Fire Island.
• Ashley Olsen might not be returning to NYU this fall as expected, but instead transfer to the same art school Mary-Kate is attending in California, no thanks to her relationship with Greg Chait, yet another nightclub owner (this time he’s based in L.A.).
• The brief fling between Sienna Miller and Orlando Bloom is likely kaput, as the Lord of the Rings star is once again in the arms of sometimes-girlfriend Kate Bosworth.
• Nightclub queen Amy Sacco isn’t content with just lounges and eateries — now she’s launching the travel service Air Bungalow with an inaugural flight to Miami for this weekend’s MTV VMAs.
• Neither Eddie Murphy or wife Nicole are waiting for their divorce to go through to return to the single life. They’re both running around L.A. hitting celeb-riddled hotspots and neither are hiding it.
Amy Sacco’s stab at food may not feel like VIP, but Bette’s bite-size portions remind you this is a dining room where food isn’t the main attraction. New York’s Hal Rubenstein wrapped up his dining experience with a review of the nightclub queen’s foodie efforts — and reveals what the press releases won’t.
Sacco lives directly above the place, in London Terrace Towers, so she’s determined to make it feel more like a neighborhood restaurant than a white-hot scenesters’ hangout. While it’s naïve to assume anything Sacco does can stay local, she has established an all–Zip Codes–welcome comfort zone.
Well, except for the 13301s thru 10314s, but you’ll be able to hear them before you see them. This is SaccoWorld™, after all.
• Nightclub doyenne Amy Sacco will have her life story told on the small screen (or HBO, which is a slightly larger screen, should you believe their PR pitches), thanks to a new deal with Sarah Jessica Parker’s Prettymatches Productions.
• Johnny Knoxville might have passed a lie detector when it came to pondering whether he had sex with Jessica Simpson, but his heart rate didn’t fare so well when it came to whether they’ve kissed.
• Paris Hilton’s identity has been stolen, not online but in the physical world. An impostor is passing herself off as Paris Latsis‘ fiance, thanks to her identical looks and the small yap dog she’s been carrying around St. Tropez.
• American Media Inc. is rushing to clean up its Demi Moore pregnancy-slash-miscarriage mess. The National Enquirer “broke” the miscarriage first and corporate cousin Star was ready with its own story that got pulled, inexplicably, at the last minute.
• The B-list hooking up continues, as Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon and Girls Gone Wild’s Joe Francis split. Francis quickly recouped with the help of new flame, saggy-assed Kimberly Stewart.
(Image via NYSD)
Editorial Director
