In response to this interview with Matt Levine, owner of NYC's newest hotspot The Eldridge, Chef Suffolk of The Suffolk Kitchen, creator of the $12,000 Knish, was inspired to put his culinary quests on hold in order to conquer the world of New York Nightlife. We recently caught up with him to talk about his new venture - "NM-UH" - a hotly anticipated, ultra-exclusive Lower East Side nightclub that he promises will take NYC Douchebaggery to heights heretofore unseen. Excerpts have been posted at Grub Street, but here's our unedited Q&A with the reclusive genius...
When are you opening?
We're open, but we still have a few kinks to work out. We need to come up with more pretentious names for staff positions than any other club. The Eldridge really upped the game, with their "butlers" and "chaperones" and such - we have to compete with that. This is not an easy business. Our staff deserve better. They're all highly-paid professionals. We're leaning towards "whores" but haven't really made up our minds yet.
How would the waitresses feel about being called "whores"? Isn't that sexist?
To most waitresses it would be, yes, but not ours. Ours have no souls, and thus no feelings. They're from a special breed that is only concerned with the bare necessities of survival: food, shelter, tanning... most of them work for free just for the chance to rub elbows with celebrities, because life is meaningless if you can't personally interact with people you see on "Access Hollywood."
Our waitresses, while we're on the subject, are one of our features that set us above any other club - you can have anything you want. If you like the classic model-type, we've got those. You want Latinas in assless chaps? Done. Former nun turned lesbian folksinger? Done. We have a quartet of Japanese schoolgirls with a number of different outfits at the apex of Japanese Youth Fashion. We actually stole them from Gwen Stefani - they were part of a custom jacket put together for her by Yohji Yamamoto. She was totally wasted and didn't even notice they were gone. We feed them a special diet of caviar, chestnuts, and pineapple juice. And gold leaf. It makes their urine very sweet, which goes into one of our signature cocktails.
But maybe the Lower East Side doesn't need this kind of venue. Isn't the appeal of that neighborhood that it's grimy?
We keep the facade grimy because our patrons, while the upper crust of society, are the kind who can still relate to lower class people. But we keep it classy at the same time. We have our own signature grime - a blend of Nile River mud, truffle dust, the Colonel's Secret Recipe, Karl Lagerfeld's dandruff flakes, and dried vomit collected from anorexic runway models. And gold leaf. We sprinkle it liberally around the sidewalk so that those few steps from the limo door to our secret entrance are perfect. It looks and smells exactly like real NYC grime.
What I don't get is how it's going to be that vastly different from anything else out there. You still have bartenders. You're just calling them something else.
We have chocolate and fresh fruit. No one else - I mean NO ONE else - has chocolate and fresh fruit. Our classic cocktails are taken to a level no one's ever experienced before. Like, we make our margaritas with Cointreau, not triple sec. And we put gold leaf in them. And we use very, very expensive liquor. And because it's so expensive, we water it down with only the finest, purest water - from a secret source in Maine, guarded by a moose. Very exclusive shit.
And our selection of name-brand liquors that signify status is incomparable. Like, for Cognacs we have Hennessy, Remy AND Courvoisier. Only we call them "'yak" because when they're downtown our celebrity clientele like to use the popular slang terms.
And we just inroduced a special collection of "His-n-Hers" cocktail pairs. The most popular is probably the "Romatic Getaway" - for him, a secret blend of exotic fruit juices, mezcal, and a raw oyster. For her: Sunny Delight, "Douché de Bagnac" Club Soda, vodka, and a floater of Rohypnol. And gold leaf.
What's the capacity?
It's the size of a city block, only much, much smaller. When you walk in, we have the Jennifer Convertibles banquettes. The entire left wall is our "expensive shit" display. We like our patrons to know right when enter that they're somewhere exclusive. At the far end is our rotating collection of almost-celebrities, people who tried and never achieved mega-stardom but were never quite interesting enough to wind up on reality shows, either. We always keep at least one around.
What are they for?
To drink their blood. This week we have Gretchen Mol.
Will the Smartwater Escalade chauffer people back to Williamsburg?
What is Williamsburg?
It's in Brooklyn.
What is Brooklyn? Oh, wait, that's that place the rapper people are always rapping about. Isn't that where they lived when they were still poor? Don't only poor people live there? I don't think anyone from this "Brooklyn" would be in here.
How do you decide who gets in?
We know a lot of quality people. It's friends and family. As long as those friends and family are famous movie, TV, music, or sports stars. Or very wealthy. That's basically what it is.
How will they let you know they're coming?
We give them laser-engraved enema bags. We thought we would do douchebags, but that's so last year. We wanted to take it up a level.
We also have a public line and a private line. Of course, no one from the public line will ever get in. The public line is six blocks away from the club, so no regular people can find out where the club really is. There's a closed-circuit feed, though, of the public line, that patrons can access through special screens located througout the club. That way they can point and make fun of the commoners.
If you don't have an enema bag, can you get in?
Only if you work here. We can always use able-bodied men to shovel coal in the basement. You won't be allowed to interact with the guests, but knowing you're making celebrities' lives more comfortable is its own reward.
Can you drop some names of who we'll see there?
Well, you'll never see anyone here, since you'll never get in. But we'll be hosting Miley Cyrus' Sweet 16 Party, and have a special "Down Low" party coming up for a select group of A-listers: Tom Cruise, Becks - I call him "Becks" because I know him personally - and some others I can't name. Lindsay is a regular, of course, just last night she was in with Mark Ronson while his sister DJ'd, and the three of them ran off to one of our private party rooms. Later one of the Olsen Twins joined them.
Which one?
The one who was engaged to Heath Ledger, I think. God, we've been trying to get him to come since we opened. He's SO A-list these days.