Belvedere has followed its “Keys to the City” ads (where the likes of Ken Friedman and Daniel Boulud looked back on their careers and recommended their favorite spots) with new installments featuring David Sarner of the Pink Elephant (he brags of bringing bottle service to the city), Kyky and Unik of Merkato 55 (Kyky recommends you “keep it real” by going to Whole Foods where “there’s beautiful girls”), our own Nur Khan of Rose Bar (“I have a passion for Morrissey Night at Sway,” he admits), and Mark Baker of Mansion, who talks about his (um, fetish?) for “fun and crazy” Russians. The must-watch ad, however, is Jeffrey Chodorow, who goes on again about Bruni’s Kobe Club number.

Andrea Strong reports that Jeffrey Chodorow will open another Kobe Club, in East Hampton (our Kobe waiter did tell us to expect more locations…), and Oso Steakhouse will open in the Southampton Inn with chef Peter Dunlop. Down by the Hipster, meanwhile, has it that, in addition to returning to their current Southampton location, Pink Elephant partners David Sarner and Bobby Montwaid are taking over Stereo’s old space at Tavern, with Pavan and Shaun Rose as partners. It still isn’t clear whether Stereo or Tenjune will return to the scene this year — perhaps another Houston’s slap down will decide who gets to stake their claim.

Hamptons Steakhouse Alert [Strong Buzz]
Hamptons Are for Partners [DBTH]

At one point, club operator turned designer Steve Lewis was the guy to get if you were opening a new venue. We’ve been wondering what happened to him ever since he worked on Amalia, but now he has resurfaced as — what else? — a blogger! We’re not going to lie: His interview with the owners of Mansion is silly shilly (“New York needs Mansion just as we need Alex Rodriguez, Johan Santana, and Lincoln Center”) and includes a lot of familiar bellyaching about the state of nightlife (promoters, bottle service, and bankers turned owners have hijacked the business; every club in the last six years has been a knockoff; there’s no personal service anymore), but we got a kick out of Miami-based Mansion partner Eric Milon’s dismissive survey of his competition.

News cameras galore may have been trained on Ivan Kane’s appearance at last night’s contentious CB2 meeting, but uptown an equally compelling drama unfolded as CB4’s business committee pondered the liquor-license renewals of the Roxy, Pacha, Crobar and Pink Elephant, and Sol — oh, just about every megaclub in the city!