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A New Eurofestation
By JULIA CHAPLINDEC. 8, 2002

THERE were no celebrities on Wednesday night at Pangaea, a nightclub in downtown

Manhattan with African safari décor. Instead, at 2 a.m. the reserved V.I.P. tables were
teeming with Europeans drinking bottles of Moët and Ketel One.

''Look, there's that beautiful girl I met in Monaco last summer,'' said Jean Bernard
Fernandez-Versini, 21, a New York University student from France, who summers on
the Riviera, spends winter vacations in St. Barts and took last year off just to party.

Mr. Fernandez-Versini's evening had gotten off to a bumpy start. He had canceled his
usual 10:30 p.m. dinner with an entourage of models and European friends at
Downtown because Giuseppe Cipriani, one of the owners, was in Italy. ''It's not the
same energy when Giuseppe's not there,'' Mr. Fernandez-Versini said in a thick French
accent. Instead, he rerouted to Serafina on Lafayette Street.

There he spied a stunning young woman at a long table for 20, and jumped up to
whisper to one of the restaurant's promoters, ''Can you ask her to come over to my table
when I'm finished eating?''

She joined Mr. Fernandez-Versini as soon as he'd washed his last bite down with a Red
Bull and vodka. ''Come to St. Barts for New Year's!'' he proposed.

Yes, those hard-partying jet-setters known to American wags as Eurotrash, who flocked
to New York City by the Concordeload in the 1980's sporting black mock turtlenecks,
leather pants and sometimes dubious aristocratic titles, are back on the town.

They can be found shelling out $350 for a bottle of Ketel One at reserved tables every
Wednesday after midnight at Pangaea, at a party given by Carmen D'Alessio, a
Peruvian-born promoter who brought some of the first Europeans to Studio 54 in the
late 70's. Elsewhere on Wednesday nights, French, Italians and a few Middle Easterners
groove at Lotus, which imports their favorite D.J.'s like Stéphane Pompougnac from the
Hôtel Costes in Paris, and Jack E from the Caves du Roy in St.-Tropez.

A Euro scene also flourishes at Bungalow 8 after 1 a.m. most nights, and at Powder, a
new club in the meatpacking district with D.J.'s who spin deafening techno. Later this
month Cielo is scheduled to open in the West Village; a dance club, it is inspired by the
Pacha club on Ibiza and decorated by the same designer who did the Nikki Beach Club
in St.-Tropez. In March, a branch of Buddha Bar, a popular restaurant and lounge in
Paris, is to open in the meatpacking district with an Asian jungle theme. (Eurotrash
hangouts, apparently, favor a motif of grass huts and tribal masks.)

''This crowd is recession-proof,'' said Amy Sacco, the owner of Bungalow 8, who said
she considers her customers ''international,'' not Eurotrash.
''They're super-high-end, well traveled and don't think twice about spending a lot of
money to have a good time,'' she said. Marc Biron, a member of the first Euro wave,
who has resurfaced promoting Euro parties at Estate and Lotus, struck a variation on
this theme. ''Europeans love to party,'' he said. ''It doesn't matter if they have money or
not -- they will always manage to buy a bottle and go out dancing.''

The original crowd of up-all-night, no-office-to-go-to Europeans arrived in New York

in the late 1970's, fleeing high taxes, unstable economies and kidnappings. Taki
Theodoracopulos, the Greek shipping heir-turned-society writer who wrote the
''Eurotrash'' column in The East Side Express in the early 80's, explained the origin of
his tribe.

''The Americans have this rather obscene habit of working,'' he said. ''So when the
Europeans came over, you'd look around at a nightclub at 3 a.m., and there'd be 40
Euros hanging around while the Americans had gone to bed at 11:30 p.m. because they
had to get up the next morning and go to Wall Street. The term was a little pejorative,
but we had a sense of humor about it.''

In the early 80's Mr. Biron helped found the Junior International Club, in part to help
Europeans vault over the velvet ropes defending clubs.

''There was a whole group of privileged kids coming to New York,'' he recalled. ''Albert
of Monaco, Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia. They wanted to get into all the private and
exclusive clubs, and Americans had this reaction.

''Not all the Europeans had money, but it appeared that they all did, because they had
brilliant titles and great clothes. So I started holding parties at Regine's and Studio 54,
and it was the first time any of them had been allowed in.''

After the 1987 stock market plunge, many of the Europeans went home. The scene
fizzled. They began trickling back during the 90's go-go years. With the collapse of
Silicon Alley and the waves of Wall Street layoffs, New Yorkers have receded from the
nightclub world, leaving the Europeans, like pilings at low tide, all the more visible.

''They're partying on as if the Dow was at 11,000,'' said Serge Becker, a founder of Joe's
Pub, who retains some of the love-hate that New Yorkers feel for such out-of-towners in
their nightspots.

''It's a totally uninspired, boring crowd,'' he added. ''Yeah, they might pick up the tab,
but you still have to hang out with them.''

That is a minority report. Regarding the old Eurotrash and the new Eurotrash, the
biggest change in perception seems to be that most New Yorkers no longer turn up their
noses at them. At a time when Americans including Sean Combs and Jenna Bush have
discovered the retro chic of St.-Tropez, many New Yorkers are dropping in on the Euro-
flavored club nights, nostalgic for their last beach vacation.

''The stigma of Eurotrash has disappeared,'' said Mark Baker, an owner of Lotus. ''In the
last few years it's become cool to associate with Europeans on their turf and be able to
drop names of the coolest club in St. Barts. New York went to St.-Tropez last summer,
and now St.-Tropez has come to New York.''

In the spring, Smirnoff Ice introduced a television commercial in which two American
guys hook up with a rich European and end up partying in a limousine and on a yacht
and a private plane. As Beth Davies, director of brand public relations for Diageo, the
company that owns Smirnoff Ice, explained, ''It's timely because the Euro jet-set life has
become so prevalent in the media that Americans feel that it's attainable.''

Giampiero Rispo, 43, an Italian who was dancing to the French house music at Lotus on
a recent Wednesday night in a blue cashmere jacket, said: ''Today to be called Eurotrash
is not negative. Americans have realized that the lifestyle is a lot of fun and they can be
part of it.''

Joseph Dahan, 22, who was born in Morocco and raised in France, works in New York
in his father's international children's clothing business. Almost every day he goes home
from the office, takes a disco nap from 7 to midnight and then goes to Lotus or Powder
or Pangaea until 5 in the morning. In the wee hours on Thursday, he sat at Pangaea amid
the gazelle antlers, African spears and bongo drummers with several friends he had met
in St.-Tropez. A thin blonde in low-waisted jeans and a partly exposed thong walked
past.

''How about a glass of Champagne?'' he asked, jumping up.

Mr. Fernandez-Versini, who was at a table nearby, said that one of his favorite things
about New York is American women. ''French girls are better dressed, but they are like
Upper East Side girls,'' he said. ''You know: long dates and complicated relationships.''

Mr. Fernandez-Versini, who began studying business administration at N.Y.U. this fall,
divides his summers between Morocco and St.-Tropez. In the fall he goes to Florence to
buy clothes, he said, then to Monaco and to the fashion shows in New York and Paris.
His parents own a house in St. Barts, which he visits every year from Christmas through
early January. He said he's able to afford the travel and the hard partying thanks to an
allowance from his parents.

Nina Nikpour, a 21-year-old New Yorker in a fuzzy white sweater, sat at Mr.
Fernandez-Versini's reserved table. ''I just love European men in leather pants,'' Ms.
Nikpour said. ''American men always talk about how much stuff costs. European men
just pay.''

Although the stereotype of the party-hearty young European in New York has some
truth to it, looks can sometimes deceive. At an art opening on Wednesday in a space in
Chelsea Market that is the future site of Zukabar, a tribal theme bar and restaurant to be
operated by the owners of Buddha Bar, Aymeric Lombard, a French-Italian investment
banker, took in an exhibition called ''Lost Worlds.'' A mostly European crowd made
dinner plans on cellphones below the new agey photomontages of Buddhas, glaciers and
landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Tower of Pisa.

''The big trick about Europeans is that we look like we have more money than we do,''
said Mr. Lombard, 31, who was neatly dressed in a collared shirt and a crew neck
sweater. ''You can get very nice, cheap clothes in Naples and look better than
Americans who spent thousands on an outfit at Gucci or John Varvatos.''

Noni Helms, 26, a German investment banker who moved to New York last year,
dresses every evening in a suit, puts his tie in his pocket and heads for the clubs around
midnight. He leaves them at about 3:30, pausing to attach his tie, and arrives at work by
4, when the European markets have opened.

''New York is great fun,'' said Mr. Helms on a recent Wednesday at Lotus, where he was
slumped against a modelesque brunette in the back room. ''Except I always feel jet-
lagged.''

To Rub Shoulders With a Euro

THESE are some New York spots favored by Europeans:

BUNGALOW 8 (club), 515 West 27th Street. After 1 a.m.

DOWNTOWN (restaurant), 376 West Broadway (Broome Street). Late dinner.

FÉLIX (restaurant), 340 West Broadway (Grand Street). Sunday brunch.

LE BILBOQUET (restaurant), 25 East 63rd Street. Saturday brunch.

LOTUS (club), 409 West 14th Street; Wednesday nights.

PANGAEA (club), 417 Lafayette Street (Fourth Street). Wednesday nights.

POWDER (club), 431 West 16th Street.

REHAB (club), 380 Lafayette Street (Great Jones Street). Weekends.

SERAFINA (restaurant), 393 Lafayette Street (Fourth Street). Wednesday night late
dinner.

And two places that are coming soon:

BUDDHA BAR (club), Ninth Avenue at 16th Street. Opening March 2003.

CIELO (club), 18 Little West 12th Street. Opening New Year's Eve.

Correction: December 15, 2002, Sunday A front-page picture in this section last
Sunday with an article about the increased number of Europeans frequenting
Manhattan nightclubs was published in error. While it showed the club Pangaea during
a party largely attended by Europeans, the young man prominently shown holding a
glass and leaning across several people was not European. He was Robert Denning of
Greenwich, Conn.