Civetta Is Not the New Beatrice
Approximately every five minutes someone leaks that Beatrice Inn owner Paul Sevigny has taken over a new place in New York that is like his old place. Except it's not really true.
This week it's the turn of Little Italy restaurant Civetta, which is reopening as some kind of mysterious hotspot. Everyone from Sevigny to The Box partner Serge Becker, Standard Hotel owner Andre Balazs, the Pope and Michael Jackson is being touted as behind this saviour-of-nightlife move.
A source points out that Sevigny is in Paris so no deal is complete, that the restaurant only has a license until midnight during the week and 2am at weekends and that any deal is not for the ownership of the space, just for promotions. "Andre Balazs and Serge Becker are not involved, from what I've heard," adds the usually reliable insider. "There's only one project that even comes close to being the new Beatrice and that's the Soho space," he/she/it said, referring to this.