Hot Summer Night Party Spots

Just in time for Memorial Day, here's a list of the best new places to go -- and how to get past the doorman.
By Michael Martin ,

A new cohort of nightlife hotspots has clawed its way to the top of every social calendar from Miami to San Diego.

Just when you were getting comfortable in your own booth at Foxtail or Bank, a new round of openings means you'll have to butter up yet another doorman, promoter and bottle-service manager.

Make sure to take our advice on the best way to crack the door -- or expect to be stuck in line, engaged in velvet-rope small talk in between nudges to a doorman impenetrable to tips or posturing.

Prive Las Vegas

Off the main casino floor of the Planet Hollywood Casino, just beyond the shriek of craps tables and $5 slots, guests clamor around a velvet rope-guarded escalator leading to one of the hottest new nightclubs in Vegas.

Its owners operate the best nightclubs in South Beach (Mansion and SET), debuting their be-seen VIP lounge at the recently renovated and reinvigorated Las Vegas strip resort.

The nightclub is assembled over three levels, far larger than the Miami original, with modular Italian furnishings in retro Pucci-inspired fabrics. The club is built around a main floor dance with elevated DJ area, attended by celebrity spinners and the occasional Hollywood recruit.

Touted as a VIP club, those booths normally reserved for bottle service around Vegas are open for all, without having to smack down a Black Card.

Door Tips

: Arrive early and you'll almost always be able to get through the door. Keep an eye out for celebrity spottings like Mariah Carey and Pamela Anderson.

Submercer New York

While we've been spending our nights at Butter and Soho House, the space located under the Mercer Hotel has slept away the last five years as a recluse.

Despite all the beauty sleep, the club is still accessed via an unmarked entrance with over-padded doormen, through an interior hallway and into a freight elevator that shakes and rattles nervous guest down two floors into an even scarier hallway of mob buckets and HVAC closets leading to the glossy red door entrance.

The interior space still features those Pizza Hut brick walls, but with three separate lounges of red vinyl banquettes, circular cocktail tables and red flickering votives. Waitresses work the room in coordinated cocktail attire, carrying oversize bottles of Domaine Ott and Perrier-Jouet, trying to avoid amateur dancers working the chrome stripper pole while DJs like Paul Sevigny spin till 4 a.m.

Door Tips

: Send your reservation request to

inquiries@submercer.com

(a fancy email suffix like gs.com helps). We had such a prompt response that it almost made us not want to go.

Crown Bar Hollywood

Winston's owners -- Andy Fiscella and

GQ

editor Chris Huvane -- debut their latest velvet-rope social lounge in a gritty Hollywood neighborhood of transgender prostitutes and

Target

(TGT) - Get Report

strip-malls.

The Spanish façade bares a fresh coat of paint with dark-tinted windows and patio of newly landscaped shrubbery. Opening night in late-April included a performance by DJ Samantha Ronson and a Hollywood posse out to christen the latest it-nightclub.

The interiors inspire a scene from '40s Hollywood with new circular bar surrounded by shimmering chandeliers and banquette seating that will inevitably require a reservation for most of 2008.

There's a limited food menu of upscale pub grub like charcuterie plates and Kobe burgers, but don't be surprised if it's never available past 10 p.m. and eventually gets axed.

Door Tips

: Call ahead for an 8 p.m. dinner reservation while you can, and linger over your meal -- 30-chews per swallow.

Plunge Miami

What New Yorker doesn't remember begging their way into the Gansevoort rooftop or Saturday night G Spa? Now you can relive that memory at Plunge, the rooftop nightclub at the new Gansevoort South Beach.

Visitors enter through the hotel lobby and a private elevator draped in velvet rope and bouncer muscle. Steel doors open to a spectacular pool deck traced by a decadent infinity pool ignited by moon and candlelight.

Surrounding the pool are chaise loungers and private cabanas reserved for bottle service ranging from oversize Grey Goose to magnums of Cristal.

The club is already a preferred destination for swanky fashion parties by

Cosmo

and Kanye West, who chose the lounge as the site of his concert post-party while in town.

Keep an eye open for the new Thursday house party by Miami's top nightclub promoter, Michael Capponi, in the coming weeks.

Door Tip

: Book a room to land a door pass. Otherwise, bottle service starts at $350 and up.

Eden and Envy -- The Ivy San Diego

The chicest thing in San Diego's Gas Lamp Distinct, the Ivy is a sexy boutique hotel home to Envy Nightclub and new summer lounge scene at the Eden Rooftop.

A popular weekend pad for Hollywood celebrities on hiatus, the crowd is a surfer guy/mortgage broker mix of singles arriving to the loft-style nightclub and seventh-floor rooftop sanctuary overlooking the San Diego skyline whipped in glorious Coronado breezes.

Eden is built around a rectangular pool with several rows of cabanas and loungers separated by cushy outdoor furnishings with the constant presence of cocktail waitresses delivering juice-infused drinks and wine spritzers.

Beyond the Sunday afternoon social soirees and splashy weekend lounge scene with house DJs, there's a Tuesday movie night that shows film noir and Hollywood blockbusters under the summer sky.

Door Tips

: Cabanas are available for weekend rental by all through the hotel operator.

Michael Martin is the managing editor of JetSetReport.com -- a luxury travel and lifestyle guide based in Los Angeles and London. His work has appeared in In Style, Blackbook, Elle, U.K.'s Red magazine, ITV and BBC.

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