For the first time, Camp David will be in New York. No, not that Camp David.
The ironically named lounge, co-owned by David Lopez and Carmen Aleman, opens this week in the East Village at 221 Avenue B.
While the original Camp David was designed as a presidential retreat, this Camp David is a social retreat set on making its clientele “feel presidential,” a spokesperson said. By that, we assume powerful and important.
Boasting “hand-crafted cocktails on plush couches,” the gathering spot hopes to kick it up a notch in a traditionally bar-heavy area.
Lopez’s interior design is dark and sexy, with cozy nooks and tree trunks as tables with glass surfaces.
The lounge is 1,200 square feet, as is the garden, which will open next month. The bar holds eight seats, with additional lounge seating for 50.
Camp David also packs this surprise presidential punch: Lopez once headed up event planning for socialite Denise Rich, the Pardongate gal whose big-time Democratic donations made headlines when President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office, pardoned her controversial tax-evading husband, Marc Rich.
Holy cow!
Dwindling cattle herds due to drought and rising exports have pushed up steak prices to their highest point in 27 years, and New York City owners and chefs are having to adjust.
“The pricing of steaks is the highest it’s been in [almost] 30 years with seemingly no end in sight,” said Lucas Billheimer, executive chef of Parlor Steakhouse.
Billheimer said the high prices have translated into “putting a lot of time into reprogramming and discovering new and exciting cuts.”
Another owner, who asked not to be named, said steakhouses don’t want to raise prices and “price themselves out of the market.”
However, he added, there might be some restaurants that skim a little, selling 16-ounce steaks but serving only 15 ounces, for example.
And now, priced out of Portugal!
With Portugal in dire economic straits, we hear its winemakers are marketing themselves internationally.
This bit of news came during lunch at Oceana restaurant, where executive chef Ben Pollinger, along with Massimo Bebber of Sirio Ristorante at The Pierre and Louro’s David Santos, put modern spins on traditional Portuguese fare.
Some of the city’s most expensive Portuguese wines such as Quinta da Manoella Vinhas Velhas ($100 a bottle) can be found at Flatiron Wines and restaurants like Aldea on West 17th Street.
We hear … that fashion designer Nicole Miller will showcase her spring/summer 2014 collection at the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation’s first “Ladies Who Lunch For a Cure” event on May 6 at an Upper East Side home owned by Dena Weiner and David Rozenholc. The foundation has awarded more than $85 million to support researchers since its inception in 1976 … that Danny Seo — dubbed “the green Martha Stewart” by The Post’s Keith Kelly — is launching his line of organic wines on Earth Day. Philosophy Wines will retail for $19.99. The first two wines are a zinfandel and sauvignon blanc from organic vineyards in Mendocino, Calif.