Guzzle & Nosh

I’m no connoisseur of urinals, but this futuristic black bullet set against the mish-mash of shattered rainbow tiles at Premiere Supper Club gets my vote for Best Urinal in Hollywood. What better receptacle for that $5,000 jeroboam of Dom Perignon?

After all, Premiere is the kind of club where bottle service starts at $395 (Stoli, Bacardi Light, Malibu, Maker’s Mark, Crown Royal) and goes all the way up to $30,000 (a methuselah of Cristal).

You can thank Kristofer Keith and Spacecraft for the design, which feels like the movie version of a Spanish wine cellar (i.e. it’s 20% sexier than real life). Owner Vinny Laresca (the man behind Villa) has a concept — above and beyond the usual make-rich-people-feel-special-so-they’ll-spend-gobs-of-money-on-alcohol concept that’s the hallmark of high-end clubs.

Recently opened in a non-descript, ruddy, wood-fronted building on Las Palmas just north of Hollywood Blvd., Premiere rides the wave of recent “experiental” bars, where performance meets ambiance. All the better, if the grimy exterior hides a discreet, highly decorated interior that feels like it transports you to another era or a distant land.

Speakeasy-themed rum bar La Descarga, opened last January, offers floor shows featuring exotic dancers. Burlesque show Harlow Gold, after a stint at Bordello in downtown L.A., set up shop at Harvelle’s in Santa Monica. Following successful runs at both The Edison and H.Wood, circus troupe Lucent Dossier is in talks to do a residency in soon-to-open Supperclub Los Angeles, according to last Friday’s LA Times nightlife story.

Abdi Manavi and Jerry Garcia’s club, which has been under construction for about a year, is set to open in the renovated Vogue Theater later this month. Unlike Premiere, which has “supper club” in the title but offers very little in the way of food (a few pizzas, a cheese plate, sausages), Supperclub will serve a $75, four-course meal along with a theatrical show (one seating per night) before the venue transforms into a nightclub.

Hard as it is to part people from their disposable income during a recession, nightlife promoters are betting that the theatricality of their venues will bring in visitors. If you make it to Premiere and drop $30K on a bottle of champagne, the bar should make it a point to get you home at the end of the night — by Iberian steed, if necessary.

More pix of Premiere Supper Club here.