Euan Rellie, John Auerbach, Jason Binn
Last night, advertorial king Gilt Groupe booked an entire wing at The Dutch — a new drooled-over West Village eatery that Sam Sifton deemed the “song of the summer” — to celebrate the advent of their partnership with GQ, Park & Bond. It’s a full-priced online marketplace hawking upscale menswear.
The new Gilt-y site launches August 8, and for Kyle McLachlan, it couldn’t come soon enough.
“I’m of the age now that I’ve been through a number of generations and I think I know what works for me,” the actor said to The Observer. “Just pull out a pair of old Helmut Lang pants from the nineties — I can still fit into those!”
These pants, we pointed, these pants are from the nineties? They were off white and, yes, they did still fit.
“I’m gonna say mid-nineties, whenever that was,” he guessed. “Probably a little past Twin Peaks.”
Kyle, get some new clothes!
“Oh I will,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be checking out the site.”
Mr. McLachlan embraced the classic cocktail hour spirit, too, and got down to some networking.
“I was just talking to Neal about doing another guest spot on How I Met Your Mother!” he said giddily. He filmed an episode for last year’s season.
But Mr. Harris was more in the mood to talk about his most recent work on the big screen rather than the small one
“Ah, yes, Smurf Week,” he said to The Observer. “You know a declaration was made — sorry, a proclamation was made. We’ve lit the Empire State Building! So I’d say this is a small indie film that we hope will get some traction.”
He hasn’t gone full-Smurf yet — “dosen’t that involve paint?” — and won’t anytime soon.
“They can only see through the pupils, so they stumble into people and run into posters and things,” he said.
That’s really awful, we noted.
“But funny! It’s funny to watch the big stuffed Smurfs fall over and not be able to stand back up, isn’t it? Wait, should I not push them?”
Mr. Harris admitted that he had not yet taken a meal at Andrew Carmellini’s super-hyped new spot, and many others were in the same boat (you just go and try to get a reservation there these days).
“Lemme ask you this,” Mr. Harris said, leaning in and whispering as if the place were bugged. “Since we’re at a private function, are they going to be serving second-tier food? Is the good stuff over there, in the main room?”
A few minutes later, sitting at a table of natty-suited designers, glossy mag editors and Gilt Groupe execs, The Observer discovered that Mr. Harris was very, very wrong. The food was delicious, exciting and plentiful. There was a dual-tiered platter of seafood, followed by fried oyster mini-sandwiches and salads, and then enormous servings of fried chicken, rare hanger steak, and lemongrass curry snapper. A four-word Observer restaurant review: Go to The Dutch.
Toward the end of the meal John Auerbach, the Gilt guy in charge of Park & Bond, rose amidst a clatter of knife-to-glass bell tones. He explained, solemnly, that company founder and CEO Kevin Ryan would not be able to make the dinner.
“Kevin had a commitment,” he said. “In Europe.”
Everyone nodded and after looking upon our clean plate, The Observer thought, “His loss!”