Hasta La Ideas

We check out the NYC of Israel with local fashion blogger and cultural maven Eyal de Leeuw

Head of External Relations at the Design Museum Holon just outside Tel Aviv, Eyal de Leeuw is not only a natural tour guide, but as co-founder of Israel’s leading men’s fashion blog Ha-Garconniere, he is clued into some of the most interesting city sights and the latest in urban night life. I met de Leeuw last month during Holon Design Week, and the former cultural attaché kindly took me around during what little down time we had. Here are his top seven must-sees for the city often dubbed the NYC of Israel.

Rothschild 12

Located on the well-known Rothschild Boulevard, the multifunctional Rothschild 12 is anything and everything you want it to be. For the morning it’s an excellent cafe to see and be seen and then later on a nice bar for an early afternoon drink. At night it’s a lounge-like music venue hosting a weekly lineup of young Tel Avivian bands and DJs. The best thing is you can always return to fight the hangover with a lovely weekend brunch.

Har Sinai

After Uri Lahav opened this nonchalant bar last year, Har Sinai became the ultimate hangout for both the hipsters and those who reject them. Before going out for a night of clubbing or at the end of a long working day, Har Sinai is a place to listen to great music and to find refuge in a small bar behind the largest Tel Aviv synagogue.

Cheesecake

Cheesecake is a party line led by talented musician (and local star) Assaf Amdursky and wiz-kid Oren Marzam, hosted every Thursday at the Breakfast Club (as well as Milk, its sister club next door). A small and intimate party line, Cheesecake throws together international DJs, amazing energies and a great photographer who captures the hippest of Tel Aviv’s gay-friendly crowd.

Joz & Loz

Laid back yet delicious, shabby-chic yet sexy, tranquil yet hectic—Joz & Loz has become one of the city’s best hangouts, attracting clients from the creative industries. The restaurant is the perfect place to enjoy a fresh and even poetic menu with secret performances by local musicians and long nights under the Mediterranean skies. Don’t forget to order a Noga, the special house drink.

Hotel Montefiore

Every city needs a boutique hotel to host elegant guests from abroad for a lovely weekend. Enjoy a fine French-Vietnamese dinner and have a drink at the bar, where they serve the finest dirty martini in town.

Sommer Gallery

With the absence of a serious center for contemporary art in Tel Aviv, many young and exciting art galleries have began opening up around town. Sommer Gallery has made an international name for itself by creating a new voice for the emerging Israeli art generation. While the main gallery shows an array of established local and international artists—such as Yael Bartana, Adi Nes, Darren Almond, Thomas Zipp and Wilhelm Sasnal—a smaller space in the gallery is dedicated for budding curators and artists.

Verner Boutique

Situated in the south of the city, Verner Boutique is a good stop on the way to the Jaffa flea market. The shop carries labels such as Maison Martin Margiela’s MM6 line, Acne and Alexander Wang, as well as Israeli jewelry designers.

Design Museum Holon

Eyal was too modest to include Design Museum Holon, but I can personally attest to the fact that it deserves an extended visit. Designed by Ron Arad, the exterior alone is worth the trip. After the “Designers Plus Ten” exhibition closes later this month, Yohji Yamomoto will take over the main gallery until 20 October 2012.

Heineken brings young designers to Tokyo for a look at five nightlife spots

At the most recent Milan Design Week Heineken launched a global project to design the club of the future. After an international competition and a year-long research process, the nightlife destination will be actually built and unveiled at the 2012 Salone del Mobile.

To get inspiration, the Open Design Explorations brings the winning group of young designers to the best clubs on the planet. Taking place in São Paulo, New York, Milan and Tokyo, Heineken invited us to take part in the Japanese phase of the investigation.

Following an introductory session where all the designers to met and began the process, we tagged along with a group of three Japanese and one English designers continuing the analysis. The four are tasked with observing people and their behaviors—not just the design of the venues.

First up was the fashionable Air in Daikanyama district, famously where Sofia Coppola shot some scenes of “Lost In Translation.” Like all the other clubs we’ll visit, the dance floor is below ground level and the music plays loudly. An all-red VIP room and an area with tables and sofas allows for chatting, drinking and smoking (common in every restaurant and bar in Japan). The music selection includes American music of the late ’70s and early ’80s, great for having a good time—but most seemed to observe rather than dance, probably because it was only just past midnight.

Sure enough, the crowd is starting to arrive when we leave to reach the next club, Unit. Here, the music and the crowd are completely different. In the main area, the deejay plays a mixture of hip-hop, electro and trip-hop. People listen rather than dance, more like a concert-style scenario. One floor down, a bar provides an area for relaxing and (like most of the kids) checking mobile phones. Outside, staff kindly asks us to stay quiet—this is a residential area and, as some signs clearly state, the neighborhood deserves to rest.

Next stop is the Ebisu district, destination Liquidroom. The first area is a large quiet bar; the music isn’t too loud and it’s easy to relax and interact with others. Downstairs there’s a food area, once again almost without music, where club-goers can relax, drink, smoke and eat traditional street food. In the next room, a large dance floor is crowded with revelers drawn to the music played by Mungolian Jetset, a bunch of colorful and pretty peculiar guys in love with the sounds of the Italo Disco and ’80s music. The crowd really appreciates the performance, dancing and screaming throughout.

But the long night out isn’t over, continuing at Eleven, a place for a younger and wilder generation. The Japanese designers that are working at the Heineken project are pretty excited, since this is one of the most popular venues for nightclubbing in Tokyo. Über-pink walls and light in the lounge zone vividly contrast with an extremely dark dance area. The excellent audio system reproduces neat and powerful sounds, while every single person dances alone, randomly lit up by slow and delicate spotlights in just a few pale colors.

It’s almost five in the morning when we head up to our last stop. Module is very close to the Shibuya Crossing, astonishingly empty at this time of day. Here, the designers and the team finally have the chance to relax and party. Pretty small and retro, the venue feels like a cozy, dusty Victorian house—the contrast with the b-boys filling the place couldn’t be stronger. The deejays play vinyl records and choose pop music of the ’60s and ’70s, plus some old kitschy soundtracks.

The renowned British members-only club opens its doors to Miami surf and sun

by John Ortved

Despite sandy beaches and tropical influence, when it comes to social life, Miami isn’t known as the warmest of places. Inundated with velvet ropes, crowded clubs, big cars and bigger jewelry, the Florida metropolis recently received an attractive antidote with the arrival of the Soho Beach House.

Situated just a short distance north of the South Beach strip on Miami Beach, Soho Beach House—complete with Cowshed Spa—hopes to bring the brand’s mix of exclusive intimacy to a scene weary of its anti-poseur atmosphere.

Soho House has always been, first and foremost, about its clientele. The establishment itself is difficult to pigeonhole—it’s a members-only club, just like its fellow Houses in L.A., New York, London and Berlin; it’s also a boutique hotel, providing 50 rooms to paying guests who get to act like members; it’s an accessible spa, offering anyone massages, blowouts and pedicures, using their exclusive Cowshed products; it’s a beach club, with beds and full service on its own strip of sand; and it’s a restaurant, Cecconi’s, offering pricey but well-prepared Venetian delicacies.

The Beach House successfully blurs the boundaries between Miami old and new. With designer Martin Brudnizki (who redid London’s Club at The Ivy), they’ve taken over the space formerly occupied by one of Miami’s great Art Deco hotels, The Sovereign, gutting the interiors and building a second tower, but leaving behind the lobby detailing and flooring, as well as its classic façade. Santo Trafficante might feel at home, but so will you as you sink into the rich upholstered sofas that adorn its lobby, as you plug in your laptop and sip a café proffered by the Cuban coffee bar.

Light and unpretentious, the hotel’s 50 rooms feature giant rainforest showers, large flat-screen TVs and massive king-size beds. The rooms range in price ($500-$1475) with suites boasting stand-alone baths, ocean views and wraparound terraces inviting guests to relax both indoors and out.

Dim hallways house ink drawings and paintings by local artists, books piled on old wooden shelves, and antique desks—all a club-like rendering of the carefully curated, bric-a-brac collector’s aesthetic known well to shoppers at Jack Spade, and mastered by John Derian. The best example is the 8th floor lounge with its antique furniture, inviting couches, impeccable views and a rooftop swimming pool and bar just steps away.

With similar disregard for borders, the lobby’s unobtrusive but bright coloring, displayed under Brudnizki’s custom Deco-inspired chandelier, gives way to the outdoor restaurant, decorated with wood and Edison lightbulbs in Mason jars that form a glowing trellis with the tanglewood trees from which they hang. The break between the indoors and out, between work, lounging and dining spaces is nearly invisible.

The 2nd floor, members-only cocktail bar—featuring a giant timber bar and tiled floor and tables is inspired by 1940s Cuban watering holes like La Bodeguita del Medio. The exterior seating seamlessly gives way to the swimming pool, and then to the beach. Accessed through a hallway of reclaimed wooden walls (from a barn in Wyoming), the bar leads to the airy Cowshed Spa and a 40-seat “Screening Snug” where they will show first-run films, like the upcoming “Carlos.” Your mouthwatering Manhattan can take you from your blowout to a film to the sand in barely a sip.

Founder Nick Jones’ aspiration to achieve “flip flop glamor” nicely embodies the challenge of Soho Beach House. These are things that either cannot, or should not, go well together: a ’40s Cuban bar and a high-end spa; a restaurant that gives way to a swimming pool; a private club that is, in some facets, open to the public. The success of Soho House will be in how they keep those borders blurred. That, and making sure the border between Soho Beach House and South Beach stays tightly guarded.

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