Type: Lounge
Address: 409 W 13th Street
Phone: (212) 255-1933
Website: www.rdvlounge.com
Bagatelle’s entry into the exclusive basement lounge genre is the type of place where Brazilian models and mixologists with complicated facial hair feel right at home. If you pass muster, you’ll be ushered hush-hush down a deliberately nondescript flight of stairs and into a large room that — with its Thai-silk couches, vintage Victorian chairs, and shock-value surrealist artwork — looks a bit a grand foyer on acid. Some standout details amid the clutter: giant candle-holders that look heisted from the Vatican; electric-green palms; an ironically Old-Master-styled painting of a pug; and one particularly questionable painting of a woman in the throes of ecstasy. — John Wheeler-Rappe