The Elevated Bachelor Party

Bragging rights without the shame.

• By Lambeth Hochwald
• Published Summer 2012

Dream Downtown   (Photo: Edward Menashy/Courtesy of Dream Downtown)

The Last Supper:
Chef’s Pass at Bouley Restaurant

David Bouley pulled 28 seats from the floor of his dining room last year to make way for Chef ’s Pass, an eight-seat table sandwiched between the kitchen and mess hall. Here, Bouley will kibbitz in-person with bachelors over a five- to twenty-course customizable menu—all the while Skyping in guest vintners and cheesemongers via a 68-inch 3-D television mounted on the wall. (Alternately, grooms can request that the screen be used to patch in additional friends.) From $250 per person. 163 Duane St., at Hudson St.; 212-964-2525.

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The Spirited Sampler:
The Tasting Room at Pasanella and Son, Vintners

Tastings at this Financial District wine-and-spirits shop can be designed around a groom’s tipple of choice. Each one is led by wine-and-spirits director Ryan Ibsen in the garden-facing enoteca, which fits up to 34 people at communal tables. The typical session lasts about two hours, and flights have a regional or subregional theme that Ibsen explores in-depth; they’re also accompanied by food pairings. The Rare Speyside Tasting ($500 room charge, plus $125 per person; minimum ten people), for example, would include swigs of a Macallan Speymalt 1999 and Linkwood 1983, chased by duck prosciutto and bread pudding. 115 South St., nr. Peck Slip; 212-233-8383.

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The Vegas-y Staycation:
Dream Downtown

If discreet debauchery is what you’re after, look no further than this happening Chelsea hotel. Use the Platinum suite (from $575) as home base for a blowout that starts with a dip at the Beach, a partially glass-bottomed, heated pool accessed from your own private gated entrance. Later, savor a Kobe-beef London broil or duck-fat soufflé at Marble Lane, the lobby restaurant run by Top Chef alum Manuel Trevino, before heading up to PH-D, the hotel’s twelfth-floor penthouse lounge. (Try to hit it before 9 p.m.; any later and entry isn’t guaranteed, plus, there’s a bottle service minimum.) Before you throw in the towel, have a nightcap in the Electric Room, an underground club—literally and figuratively—tucked beneath the hotel’s loading dock. 355 W. 16th St., nr. Ninth Ave.; 212-229-2559.