Young Hollywood was a full-scale bacchanal, and the elite (which at this time counted among its ranks Spears, Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, Hilary Duff, and Lauren Conrad, to name a few) were on the ground with normies in a way that would be unfathomable today. Information was shared via word of mouth and through elaborate phone trees. Obviously, as always, the most desirable spots were highly exclusive-you had to know the most well-respected promoters to get in. It was a crazy time in LA.” In a world without iPhones, celebrities could cut loose at a bevy of colorful LA hot spots: there was Les Deux, made famous by the cast of The Hills Teddy’s Guy’s Bar the bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the site of the infamous outing where Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears all squeezed into Hilton’s sports car, forever immortalized in tabloid history after the New York Post dubbed a snapshot of the trio “ Bimbo Summit” and Hyde Lounge, where a young Kim Kardashian used to party. You didn’t have to worry about paparazzi. “Every celebrity used to go to the clubs. The turn of the century was “the heyday of LA nightlife,” recalls Toll. These halcyon days of pre-internet nightlife in LA would continue for another blissful few decades. When rock and roll exploded in the ’60s, the Whisky a Go Go was the place to be seen for anyone who was hip-go-go dancers writhed in floating glass boxes above the dance floor while Otis Redding recorded a classic, rollicking live album and legends like Led Zeppelin brought some of their earliest performances to the stage. Trocadero in the ’30s gave way to Ciro’s in the ’40s, both spots hosting everyone from Fred Astaire to Cary Grant and Lucille Ball. It started in the ’20s, when prominent LA socialites and silent film stars had Café La Boheme, a Prohibition-era speakeasy on the Sunset Strip, just outside the jurisdiction of the LAPD. Los Angeles’s reputation as a hub for buzzy nightclubs is, of course, inextricable from the birth of the film industry and the city’s very origins (see: chicken, egg). This kind of publicity is an invaluable currency in the city’s fiercely competitive restaurant landscape. Los Angeles has long been a breeding ground for “celebrity-endorsed” spots since the nascent days of Hollywood these days, civilian diners clamor for reservations at places like Delilah, the Nice Guy (another The h.wood Group entity), The Ivy, Mother Wolf, Craig’s, and others in large part because they know the venues from paparazzi shots of their favorite celebrities. And for every party written about on the Daily Mail, there are a host of secret celebrity buyouts we don’t see (both Terzian and cofounder Brian Toll declined to comment on which A-listers have hosted private events at Delilah). And as for their parties, these are a sampling of the ones we know about: Kaia Gerber’s sweet 16 Vanity Fair’s Young Hollywood Party Stassie Karanikolaou’s legendary Halloween party Kylie and Kendall Jenner’s respective 21st-birthday bashes. Justin and Hailey Bieber have been spotted multiple times. Here regulars are anything but regular: Drake has been a staple from the start (“He is family at this point,” John Terzian, cofounder of The h.wood Group, which owns Delilah, tells Vanity Fair). Just as I think my senses have reached peak saturation, dessert hits the table: an ice-cream-laden “ slutty brownie” named after Kendall Jenner. Such is life at Delilah, the West Hollywood supper club that’s become an unofficial sanctuary for the rich and famous. Burlesque dancers shimmy through the crowd in extravagant feathered headpieces. Looking around, I spot the children of famous musicians and actors catching up with one another, Dior bags lying around in piles on the dining room’s custom pink couches. Recording is usually not permitted at Delilah, but exceptions are made on very special occasions, and its black-tie New Year’s Eve bash certainly qualifies.Īs Mario croons, I hear whispers that John Mayer is on his way. Clad in an all-white suit, he bursts into his 2004 hit “ Let Me Love You.” A sea of cell phone camera flashes light him up from every possible angle. Just after the clock strikes midnight at Delilah, early-aughts R&B sensation Mario takes the stage.
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