HauteZone: The Lambs Club - the only sacrifice is calories...

Monday, November 1, 2010

The Lambs Club - the only sacrifice is calories...

If you saw my previous post 'Diana Vreeland would be so proud', you may have noticed the interiors behind the clothing. The shoot occurred at The Lambs Club, here in New York City. Done, so beautifully I wanted to tell you a little more about it.

This project has been on the books and boards for some time. It's nice to see it come to fruition. I project it will be one of the sought after party spots this holiday season. I'll say it opened just in time. Now for some backstory on the joint...

Before becoming The Chatwal New York and The Lambs Club Restaurant and Bar, this iconic Stanford White-designed building was the epicenter of American for the 20th century. The building originally opened in 1905 as home to the prestigious Lambs, America's first professional theatrical club. Organized in 1874 by a group of actors and enthusiasts, The Lambs occupied a series of rented quarters before settling at 44th Street. The American club took their name from a similar group in London, which flourished from 1869-1879, in the name of drama critic and essayist Charles Lamb.

Food prepared by famed chef Geoffrey Zakarian.

Geoffrey Zakarian was born in the great Bordeaux year of 1959. Trained classically under the tutelage of some of the finest French master chefs, he brings a traditional excellence to his cutting edge and innovative approach to the culinary arts.

Geoffrey's meteoric rise through some hottest and most respected restaurants in Manhattan began at Le Cirque where he was named Chef de Cuisine. He moved on to become Executive Chef at the legendary 21 Club where he earned two stars from Brian Miller of the New York Times.

In 1990 Geoffrey assumed command of Restaurant 44 at the Royalton Hotel, and went on to work at the Blue Door in Miami in 1995 and Bice in Paris. His pursuit of a refined balance between old and new led him to Patroon in 1998, where the New York Times once again praised his talent, awarding him three stars and describing his menu "remarkably smart."

Stanford White, a partner at prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White, was the original architect of The Lambs clubhouse. His design principles embodied the "American Renaissance," as seen in his work on summer homes for the Astor and Vanderbilt families and such formidable structures as The Washington Square Arch, Madison Square Garden and the New York Herald Building. For The Lambs, he designed a six-story, neo-Georgian brick building featuring a facade ornamented with ram heads. A boisterous grill room and billiard room were on the first floor, a banquet hall on the second floor and a theater on the third floor. The top floors provided space for offices and sleeping quarters, often utilized by members traveling to The Great White Way from Hollywood. The size of the building was doubled in 1915 when an addition was constructed on the west end of the building, a virtual copy of the original. In 1974, the building was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks and Preservation Commission.

Since the club's founding, there have been more than 6,000 Lambs, with an elite roster reading like a Who's Who of American theater and film: Maurice, Lionel and John Barrymore, Irving Berlin, Cecil B. DeMille, David Belasco, Charlie Chaplin, George M. Cohan, Douglas Fairbanks, John Wayne, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Spencer Tracy and Fred Astaire, who was famously quoted as stating, "When I was made a Lamb, I felt I had been knighted."

The Lambs Club Restaurant and Bar is the collective vision of 5 friends: Chef Geoffrey Zakarian, Will Regan, David Rabin, Jeffrey Jah and Margaret Zakarian, who have created, either on their own or in past collaborative efforts, some of the most talked about and well-regarded hospitality ventures, both here in NY, and beyond.