Though nightlife in the world's trendiest city hasn't gone away, and probably never will, it isn't what it used to be, either.
While in the `70s, The Big Apple's most up-to-the minute scene existed in psychedelic, cavernous nightclubs with split-level dance floors and peopled by scores of lean-limbed lovelies in black spandex, the focus these days has largely turned to restaurants.But the center of action these days isn't on such uptown, uptight eateries of the past as Mortimer's, Chanterelle, Lutece, La Cote Basque or La Grenouille.
The new hot spots are looser downtown sites where New Yorkers say they find a more relaxed atmosphere in which one can party with friends, drink and eat without dashing from place to place and climbing in and out of limos.
So, for those planning a trip to New York, here's our totally arbitrary Top 10 guide to Manhattan's hippest spots:
1) The most relentlessly chic restaurant these days is 150 Wooster (212-995-1010), British restaurateur Brian McNally's unmarked, hard to find red-brick Soho spot whose name is its address.
In the great Studio 54 tradition, it's the kind of place you can get into only if you know someone.
Celebrities from film, stage, fashion, finance and publishing abound, and on any given night you might see Dustin Hoffman; Madonna; the highly social Blaine Trump; Ian Schrager - former Studio 54 co-chieftain and owner of the hip hotels Morgan's and the Royalton - and a slew of girls with alabaster skin, pink lips and not too much clothing all smoking up a storm.
McNally (of once-hip Indochine, Canal Bar, Cafe Odeon fame), is a nightly fixture, wandering through the restaurant greeting everyone and surveying his kingdom.
Inside, everything is colorful, from the stylish Brazil-inspired decor featuring white walls, trompe l'oeil window views, palms, and blue and yellow tiled floor, to the service people.
The perennial parade of beauty, is frequently more enticing than the food, however. East Coast restaurant maven Mimi Sheraton blasted the cuisine in a review, and Reinaldo Herrera, an editor for Vanity Fair, suggests, "All the food here is uneatable, so it doesn't matter what you order. Just close your eyes and point."
Some say 150 Wooster is already beginning to lose its pull on the perennial New York chicmeter.
"Three months ago you could come here and it was like a private party," laments Herrera. "Now you come and there's hardly anyone you know or would care to know. It's cooling down."
2) Scenewatchers think the hottest new spot of the coming year may be Punsch (11 West 60th St. 212-767-0606), a French Scandinavian restaurant that opened last month.
Co-owner Rick Wahlstedt, a 27-year-old Swede and a professional squash player, says he's already been getting calls for reservations from places as far away as Detroit.
The restaurant, named for a Swedish liqueur, has an airy look, with hunter green velvet banquettes, well-placed freestanding tables, a bar of mahogany rolled in orange shellac, mirrors, green shutters and a private dining room with velvet drapes and candlelight.
"We wanted an uptown restaurant with a downtown atmosphere," says Wahlstedt, whose partner is Ulrik Trojaberg, a former dancer at the New York City Ballet, where he was an assistant to Peter Martins.
3) A still hot restaurant is the irresistibly lovely (but very loud) Le Madri (168 West 18th St., 212-727-8022), a downtown site with an uptown patronage.
Food (the menu changes every two months) and decor complement each other well in this Tuscan restaurant, which is co-owned by Pino Luongo, owner of the fashionable Sapore di Mare on Long Island, and the Pressman family, which owns the nearby Barneys department store.
Well-known types who eat at Le Madri include Hoffman, former New York Mayor Ed Koch, gangbusting prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani, Jill Clayburgh, Ivana Trump and such fashion honchos as Revlon chief Ron Perelman.
"We've had it with ballgowns and fancy restaurants," says Sonja Caproni, president of Donna Karan Accessories Divisions. "Le Madri is just what restaurants now are all about - chic but unpretentious."
The restaurant, which opened last May, has a huge main dining room featuring airy vaulted ceilings, pale yellow walls, a tiled wood-burning pizza oven and huge vegetable sculptures created exclusively for Le Madri by Dutch sculptor Gerd Verschoor.
During the early evening hours you'll see a fashionable, albeit older crowd, straight from work or eating an early dinner. At about 10 p.m., the younger chic West Hampton and theater sets surge in.
The food is great. Maybe that's because of Luongo's sweet idea of importing revolving trios of Italian mamas - nonprofessional cooks who would work alongside his own chef.
Luongo says the idea is to have home cooking. "I mean mothers in the gastronomic sense, not in the biblical sense. People (connected to) people who have been cooking generation after generation."
4) Peggy Sue's (121 University Place, 212-260-4095) is a tiny, grungy, funky joint in the New York University district near Washington Square Park. Co-owner Patrick Fahey, 28, calls the spot "200 square feet of energy" where busboys and students rub shoulders with Matt Dillon, David Keith, Timothy Hutton and Nick Nolte.
"Most people come here because we get a good-looking crowd - models, actors," says co-owner Terry Quinn, 29. "That's the only way to get people in New York."
Says Herrera, "All the young beautiful models and actors go there and they all hang around. You can see anyone there from John Kennedy Jr. to the guy in the street. It's very informal. There's a bar upstairs, but there's no drug taking. People just boogie to the music. It's fun to watch."
The music is a combination of funk, rock, new wave and R&B.
Says Fahey, "It's a funky, downtown high-energy place. Nothing matches. There's a wheel-in pool table. We opened in September 1987 and we're still packing them in."
5) Another popular hangout these days is 44 (44 West 44th, 212-944-9415), the sophisticated Philippe Starck-designed restaurant in the lobby of the sophisticated 90-year-old neo-Georgian Royalton Hotel.
44 is as trendy for lunch as for dinner, particularly for the fashion crowd because, as designer Carmelo Pomodoro says, "It's halfway between Seventh Avenue and Conde Nast and all the designers can meet the fashion editors there."
The restaurant - which serves food that sounds awful but tastes great, like charred broccoli in curry vinaigrette - opened in October.
Both hotel and restaurant are striking, with Starck's signature quirky details - horn-shaped door handles, aluminum railings in the shape of serpents, decorative sconces in the shape of steers' horns, glass-top tables with aluminum flared legs, architecturally sculpted curved or pointed wing chairs, huge mirrors hanging from colored cords and trailing tassels, chairs covered in cream canvas or lime green or violet velvet, bathrooms in all black with mirrored stall doors.
On a Friday evening, the young chic types arrive still in office clothes to lounge about, three to one sofa, and watch the show.
6) The Livingroom (154 East 79th St., 212-772-8488), on the Upper East Side, appears to have been designed for a homey (though posh) atmosphere that makes you feel, well, right at home. Here, the yuppies come to trade LBO and art price info amid mahogany moldings, wood ceiling fans, palms, oil paintings, tufted sofas and marble walls. There's no dance floor, but that leaves more time for networking during after-work drinks. Later in the evening, the oh-so-chic singles in lots of hair spray move in.
7) Barocco (301 Church St., 212-431-1445), a Tribeca trattoria with Tuscan menu in a high-ceilinged former art gallery, is a much happier experience. Decor is black and white along the Italian Memphis line, and the entrees include green ravioli filled with ricotta in a tomato basil sauce.
The restaurant attracts a very arty crowd with just about every hot new New York designer from Gordon Henderson to Michael Leva eating there on a regular basis. So if you need some new clothes...
8) Flamingo East Steak House (219 Second Ave., 212-533-2860) has become a happening (if noisy) place since it opened, even though its name is slightly misleading - the menu includes only one steak.
Owner Darrell Maupin kept the name when he took over the place from the previous owners because the liquor license could be easily transferred, said manager Blair Weinkoop.
"Before, it was really tacky, all covered in flamingos and nobody came," he added. "And we figured if nobody came when it looked like that why change it - because we don't want a lot of people here."
They come anyway and these days the restaurant - with low ceilings, black and white checked linoleum tile floor, gray leather banquettes, conical cream plaster pillars and walls painted in what Weinkoop calls "silver mint blue" - plays host to a fashiony artsy crowd. Everyone wears black, there's a lot of leather and lace, and the hip women wear earrings long enough to catch a nice fat bass.
9) Alison on Dominick (38 Dominick, 212-727-1188), west of Soho, has been open since May 1989. Owner Alison Price says she wanted "a place that would be elegant and comfortable at the same time, where people could wear jeans or black tie." Decor is understated, with blue and black striped velvet curtains and simple Shaker chairs.
Patrons include Willem Dafoe, Stockard Channing, Leonard Nimoy and Joel Grey, but Price says she doesn't recognize most of the celebrities who drop by.
"The thing that links everyone who comes here is that they want a nice bottle of wine and good food," she says. "People say we're trendy, trendy, trendy, but I'm the most untrendy person I know."
10) Another so-called hot Manhattan eatery these days is Lucky Strike (59 Grand, 212-941-0479), Keith McNally's retort to brother Brian's 150 Wooster. The two brothers, who started Odeon together, have been feuding ever since Brian opened Indochine.
Lucky Strike bills itself as a bistro. And with its grungy exterior, reasonably priced but less than extensive menu, tiny tables, vinyl banquettes, wooden ceiling fans, sickly yellow walls and menu scribbled on mirrors, it certainly looks like one.
Be careful not to overstay your welcome. Your table is needed.
Still, the restaurant packs them in and even with long waits (no reservations are taken except for parties of more than eight), you might see Madonna, designer Christian Francis Roth and a halfway chic crowd of, well, regular folks.
Says John Lewis, an actor who has been on the television show "Midnight Caller": "The people are cool, the food is great, the staff is friendly. I'm here all the time. You can come in jeans. It's not pretentious."
It has no right to be.
Our recommendation: Don't bother.