Avenue

When you were younger, the ideal night might've consisted of hitting a booming warehouse to roll around googley-eyed doing the Sprinkler as the Dirty Vegas catalogue made conversation wonderfully impossible -- but what are you doing this weekend? For a lounge offering grown-up irresponsibility, hit Avenue. Opened by the aging (33!) Marquee guy, Avenue's a grandiose, tri-level "gastro-lounge" centered around an Oriental-carpeted main drag flanked Parliament-style by undulating brown banquettes, and lorded over by a glass-lined mezzanine and vaulted ceilings hung with chandeliers made from Belgian wine barrels; despite the (very) elevated DJ booth, there's no cabaret license, a fortunate handicap that should discourage unfortunate incidents of holycrapiamdancingmyassoff. The "gastro" is globo-influenced American small plates (miso-glazed Chilean sea bass, Kobe beef sliders, kung pao chicken satay, etc) from the former chef of the former Mojo, known to his friends as Bleezy -- slang for a blunt, so where are the crepes? Because nobody likes gastro sans booze-o, the full bar's slinging the usual hot premium action, plus margaritas, vino, and a specialty cocktail list which either hasn't been settled on, or was accidentally bleezed.

As for music, the DJ'll be spinning mostly soul, plus assorted nuggets from the seventies and eighties -- decades during which even without clubbing, you still managed to speak incomprehensibly, and do plenty of sprinkling.