‘We’re going to remember this like it was the first night of Art Basel,” Ocean Drive editor-in-chief Suzy Buckley Woodward said on Thursday night and she had a point.
She had just wrapped her magazine’s party at the W South Beach with cover girl Chelsea Tyler, and Chrissy Teigen was still holding court there. And when Buckley Woodward walked us back to the SLS South Beach, the short five-block stroll took around 30 minutes. Not because of anybody’s high heels, but because she kept running into people on the street, including shoe designer Donald Pliner.
Art Basel doesn’t start until Dec. 6 in Miami, but South Beach’s social scene was in full force Thursday, with a jammed crowd of moguls, models and misfits, many who had flown in for the day, partying the night away at SBE Entertainment Group’s SLS South Beach grand opening.
LA-based SBE king Sam Nazarian was there, of course, posing with collaborators including starchitect Philippe Starck, Lenny Kravitz (the musician-turned-hotel-designer created the SLS’ penthouse suite) and chef José Andrés. All the public spaces in the hotel were overflowing. Katsuya was filled with skinny minis and hungry men, including “Girls Gone Wild” boss Joe Francis, who stacked plates high with sushi. After Rumer Willis performed on an outdoor stage, Hyde Beach turned into what was billed as a “sexy hell,” where a diverse cluster of pretty faces raged, dancing like there was no place to go tomorrow even though they had spin or pilates classes in about six hours.
And Andrés was his usual jolly self, offering up what seemed like an unlimited amount of what he calls “Jose’s Tacos”: Iberico ham topped with caviar at his playful as ever Bazaar restaurant, where it seemed like nobody had an empty cocktail or champagne glass.
It felt even odder than usual, this level of extreme decadence that always feels a bit odd. But this time, this was a room where New Yorkers talked about the perhaps irreparable hurricane damage to their homes and what was left unsaid was that there were people here who have NYC buildings where residents have been displaced.
But, of course, Andrés, who’s also getting ready to unveil a food truck at SLS, was just doing what he gets paid to do. He was working, celebrating food, being the life of the bash, serving dishes that he knows are over the top because that’s a big part of the point. That’s his job. The crowd of Miami glitterati (Reggie Bush, Emilio Estefan, “Real Housewives” including Lea Black and Lisa Hochstein, Heat owner Micky Arison, real estate heavyweights Jorge Perez, David Edelstein and Edgardo Defortuna) got dressed up for a big night out, and Andrés was there to make sure they left happy.
And Andrés is also the man behind World Central Kitchen, an organization devoted to finding “sustainable solutions to ending food insecurity and malnutrition.” Earlier last week, he was in Staten Island and the Rockaways, visiting Red Cross kitchens, “taking notes, asking questions and learning” all he could about New York’s relief efforts. He was also tweeting up a storm to his 135,000-plus followers, telling them what they could do to help out all over the city even though he doesn’t even yet have a New York restaurant.
But there’s a good chance he will in the near future. Nazarian’s opening an SLS on Park Avenue next year, and he’s had serious talks with Andrés about joining him. Expect one hell of a big party.
MIAMI DOES ITS PART
Chef Andrew Carmellini’s the Dutch at W South Beach has joined forces with Cobaya — Gourmet Guinea Pigs (a group that does Miami events inspired by “underground dinner clubs”) on a Hurricane Sandy-relief fundraiser that’s taking place Sunday, Nov. 18. The $250 five-course extravaganza will feature food from Miami chefs including Michelle Bernstein, Aaron Brooks and Jeremiah Bullfrog, with cocktails from the BarLab (a k a Broken Shaker) team that’s working with Bullfrog on Miami’s hip new Freehand youth hostel. All proceeds benefit NYC Food Flood, a relief fund started by Carmellini, Marco Canora, Seamus Mullen and George Mendes. To request seats, e-mail cobayamiami@gmail.com
Follow Andy Wang at twitter.com/andywangny.