Villa Pacri

Every once in awhile, something comes along that just makes sense.

For instance: start with a five-story chateau. Add a yachtload of champagne. Insert supermodels. Light the roof on fire. And set it all up in nowhere else but... the Meatpacking District.

Introducing Villa Pacri, the MPD's latest self-contained metropolis of excess, from the Euro hedonists behind Bagatelle.

You'll get in on the ground floor (not your usual point of entry, we know) when the open-air rustic Italian café, dubbed La Gazzetta, opens next Thursday. Here, amongst formica two-tops, wooden chairs and a colorfully tiled floor, you'll take a panini and carafe of red onto the sidewalk patio as you consider the future: La Gazzetta is only the beginning.

In the coming weeks, Villa Pacri will take it to the next level. And by next level, we actually mean the basement, where a DJ lounge will unleash the sort of afternoon debauchery that made Bagatelle famous—think volcanoes of champagne and downpours of burning sparklers on the heads of brunching Dolce & Gabbana minions packing a week's worth of intoxication into a single afternoon.

Then, later this summer, you can expect a white-tableclothed restaurant on the second floor, a private banquet hall on the third and, crowning the whole creation, a rooftop bar where brunch will evolve into an open-air nightclub.

Which will only occasionally be on fire.