AFTER HOURS

Dinner with Dom

Wednesday can be a tough night on the social circuit. On the one hand, there’s cause to celebrate that you’re half way through the work week. But let’s say, hypothetically, you were to engage...


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Wednesday can be a tough night on the social circuit. On the one hand, there’s cause to celebrate that you’re half way through the work week. But let’s say, hypothetically, you were to engage in something that might leave you with a hangover, you’re stuck with two more days of office time before a chance of recovery is on the horizon.

Such inner turmoil was the stuff of my deep meditations last night when my sensible side said, Go home, eat some vegetables and get to bed. But the siren call of a Dom Perignon dinner at Alphabet City eatery Edi & the Wolf proved irresistible and so that’s why I found myself in a tiny, rope and objets-bedecked restaurant around 9pm sipping champagne, as Lily Kwong, Harley Viera Newton, Elise Overland, Richard Chai, Arden Wohl, Hannelore Knuts and Waris Ahluwalia clustered by the bar.

The evening was called a “Just for Fun Dinner, Celebrating Fashion, Champagne & April in New York,” a rather unwieldy name, but an apt description and certainly enough of a draw for even those ambivalent about the beverage of choice.

“I hate champagne, but I’m here anyway,” said one guest.

Quarters were cramped, and movement nearly impossible as waiters passed around trays of mini Wiener Schnitzel.

“I think I’m too big for this party,” said one guy as he looked for an escape route.

Once seated at long, candelit wooden tables, Vincent Chaperon, a young, French Dom Perignon winemaker and the guest of honor introduced himself and the three varieties and vintages of Dom being served with the meal of Austrian ravioli, shell steak and Bavarian cream with macerated fruits.

“It is a very seductive champagne,” he said of the 2000 Rosé, to many titters.

And it proved rather potent, too. By the second course, Phillip Lim had switched to a tall, frothy glass of beer.

“I don’t want a hangover,” he said.

Wish I had been that smart.

Photos: Billy Farrell Agency