Amy Sacco, the woman who's often called the queen of New York nightlife, would prefer to stay mum about her new fiancé, the tall Italian doctor who proposed to her a few days ago, in Rome, on a bridge overlooking the Tiber River. Really, she says, this is a part of her life that she'd prefer to keep private. But—oh, well!—there's an item in today's Page Six about the surprise engagement, which occurred only six weeks after the couple met, so the secret is already out. And in any case, when Sacco gets excited about something, which happens often, she's not the type to hold back.
"I've found a real man. Yeah!" she says, beaming, in a suite at the St Martins Lane hotel in London, where she's preparing to open a branch of her club, Bungalow 8. A few details about her betrothed, Luigi de Carolis: He's a Rome-based surgeon, a kite surfer and a "very serious and strong" person, says Sacco, who met him in New York through a mutual friend. After the proposal, the two stayed in Rome for Valentino's 45th-anniversary celebration, and then de Carolis took Sacco to see the family palazzo. "I think his mother's a countess, but I don't know," says Sacco in her gravelly baritone. "I always said I'd marry the pizza guy, but I'm marrying the palazzo guy."
That's a typical quip from New Jersey–born Sacco, 39, a onetime bartender who, through a combination of party-girl charisma and street-smart ambition, has evolved into the jetset's favorite den mother. (Before she landed in Rome, she spent a week at her friend George Clooney's house in Como.) Sacco, six feet one on the rare occasions when she's not wearing stilettos, is the kind of blond glamazon who naturally dominates a room. And she has recently agreed to all sorts of new engagements, not all of them nuptial: There are several nightlife projects in Las Vegas, a condominium deal in lower Manhattan and consulting gigs with, among others, underwear mogul Nick Graham and Eos Airlines. There's also a fictional TV series in the works, based on Sacco's life and executive-produced by Sarah Jessica Parker.
Sacco's main priority for the moment, however, is the September opening of Bungalow 8 London. The original nightspot, which opened on West 27th Street in 2001, is still hanging on as one of Manhattan's main VIP clubhouses, even though its success has drawn a clutch of less exclusive clubs to the surrounding neighborhood, where Sacco had been a pioneer in 1997 with her first club, Lot 61. While Sacco's location in London is anything but cutting-edge—it's in the St Martins Lane hotel, a few blocks from Leicester Square—she picked it because of her new partnership with owner Morgans Hotel Group, which will handle the club's operations. Sacco calls the new Bungalow, which was designed by India Mahdavi, a "sophisticated European sister" of the original. The club will stay open during the day, unlike the New York location, offering grilled cheese sandwiches and other items from the original's menu.
