Provocateur Club / Lounge

Meatpacking District, New York –

It may be located on the backside of the Gansevoort Hotel, but über-exclusive nightclub and lounge Provocateur might as well be on the backside of Mars considering most people’s chances of getting in.

Split into two separate spaces, the venue features a garden lounge called the Café on one side and the lavish club on the other. In both, impeccably dressed and shockingly tall models are the norm – and that’s just the staff.

Airy and open, the lounge is full of birch trees and wrought iron furniture arranged beneath a massive glass ceiling that fully retracts in summer.

Scads of rich businessmen and gorgeous party girls take their bottles to colossal crescent-shaped banquettes, each table service area designed with ornate photo murals to resemble rooms in a European dollhouse.

The real action, however, is in the club. Which, of course, has its own separate guest list from the Café.

Awash in purple and black, with sexy low lighting, space-age chandeliers, and an enormous pair of angel wings overlooking the ever-present glitterati, the club regularly hosts big-name DJs who get the house dancers and Vogue girls gyrating on poles amid pulsing blasts of cryogenic smoke.

By 2am – after even the most straight-laced patron has downed a few too many Strawberry Glitter cocktails – most of the crowd is dancing right up there with them.

Defying New York nightlife by remaining an exclusive hot spot since 2009, Provocateur shows no signs of being any less provocative.