Considering your lofty standards, your office party may fall a bit short this year. You're going to need something larger, at least in vision. So in the spirit of seasonal generosity, we'd like to call your attention to six places to host your own bash, whether it's a model-filled High Line Jacuzzi-fest or a quiet evening of keg service. Choose wisely.
This shadowy sibling to the Boom Boom Room is technically open, but so far parties are limited to Friends of Balazs. Once you charm your way into an early booking, you'll get to celebrate the season with a Nicholson-sized Jacuzzi, machine-dispensed boardshorts and a rotating cast of beautiful strangers. They should be sufficiently merry…
House parties are always better if you can borrow someone else's house. Head to the fifth floor of FiDi's Burger Shoppe and you'll find a fully outfitted loft, complete with a bathtub full of champagne, an hors d'oeuvres menu full of crab-cakes and a crash-ready antique bed. And most important, a cleanup crew to dispose of the evidence.
Venture two stories down from the bustling café upstairs and you'll find a subterranean annex ripe for a takeover. It's your chance to build a personalized version of the same taco- and tequila-fueled madness that's raging topside, complete with leather couches for sprawling and nine-karat gilded mirrors for surreptitiously checking out your fellow guests.
In the gastropub category, you may have noticed that one of the city's newest high-ceilinged hotspots arrived with a VIP mezzanine built right in—complete with a roped-off entrance, its own bar and a mildly aristocratic view of the scene, not to mention a pretty tasty ham-and-goat-cheese tart. And if the balcony gives you vertigo, you can always head downstairs a few flights to the Ace Hotel's nightclub-style basement room, where things should get a little unhinged, and a little louder. Ask nice and they'll even let you bring your caramel popcorn with you.
Sometimes you don't want a hotspot. Sometimes you just want a plate of schnitzel in a banquet hall packed to the brim with pine boughs, eerily lifelike dolls, and hundreds and hundreds of holiday ornaments. The overall effect should be something like a holiday party inside a Christmas tree—only with more bratwurst.
This one falls into the "blotting out memories of the previous year" category. The puppeteers of debauchery are reserving the back half of their space for private depravity, with the help of a massive velour curtain. Peek behind it and you'll find anatomical ice luges, seven hours of keg service, and a little person dressed as Santa Claus. Your typical holiday trifecta.
