•Take me to B.E.D. or lose me forever. Prepare yourself: With the opening of the new "Beverage.Entertainment.Dining." establishment on Washington Avenue, B.E.D. puns are sure to abound. And do take them literally: The interior of this supper club really does comprise "dining beds," where local journalists such as Tara Solomon and Tara Gilani as well as socialite Norma Jean Abramson lean against pillows and snack on sea bass served on oversize rattan trays. I'm all for sipping kir royales while I recline, but eating in bed ... I don't know, it kinda feels like Passover. Bring on the Manishewitz. But then maybe I'll be more comfortable if I bring my harem -- 'scuse me, my entourage -- along to drop grapes (the solid kind, not the liquid ones) down my throat.
•It was an interesting (i.e., stressful) holiday season for Michael Schwartz, proprietor of Nemo. Not only did his wife give birth to their second daughter, his executive chef Frank Jeannetti went through his own labor pains and left the restaurant. "We had a two-year run that was mutually beneficial," Schwartz says. "Now I'm back in the kitchen full-time and I'm going to be there for a while." In conjunction with Jeannetti's former sous chef Ramon Guerero, Schwartz currently is revising the Cali-fusion menu for consumption-friendly dining, which he'll probably unveil in time to celebrate Nemo's fifth anniversary.
•The infamous Rubell family hosted infamously failed movie actor David Caruso (who was staying at another Rubell property, the Albion Hotel, while he was in town), and infamous-by-association-to-an-actor-and-their-failed-engagement Shoshona Lonstein at a private tasting at the new Beach House Bal Harbour restaurant atlantic. Cookbook author and creative director Sheila Lukins was on hand to supply her contemporary American cuisine; busy girl, she also was promoting her "latest" effort (released in 1997), a tribute to American home cooks titled U.S.A. Cookbook, signing copies of it across the street at Bal Harbour Shops. If the appellation and tone of the tome sounds basic, it's probably a purposeful PR move; Lukins is best known as co-author of the Silver Palate and New Basics cookbooks. (You can tell that New Basics is the only book in my house to get active -- as opposed to research -- use. There are concentric circles on the back cover from the time I left it on a lit burner.) Also on hand at the tasting: Paolo Pincente and Dirk Van Stockum, co-proprietors of the club at the Cameo called crobar. Opened the same night as B.E.D., crobar drew even more beautiful people and more locally (and globally) famous folk -- Lenny Kravitz, George Clooney, Perry Farrell, Paul Sorvino, Patricia Field, David Geffen, Vanilla Ice, and Lennox Lewis -- with a dichotomous stunt shoot featuring wrecked cars and perfectly preserved models; photographer Dah Len posed them for posterity for French Vogue and Details magazine. One thing, though. I'm all for the magically real, magically delicious themes of crobar and atlantic, but I gotta know: What's with the cutesy lower-case proper names? Is grammar out of vogue?
•Kvetch: Overheard in the restroom at B.E.D.'s grand opening: "People here are so stupid. No one in Miami has a college education." Well, shoot, girlfriend, that just ain't true. 'Sides, you don't need no piece of paper to party, now do ya?
