Rouge: The New Bohemia

theater

Can a club reinvent itself after making a barely perceptible change? Go to Denim restaurant and lounge tonight and find out. Open for just nine months, Denim is relaunching to show off its newly refurbished self with a gala event.

The evening includes a cocktail and dinner party, and a cabaret performance by the much-feted NYC theater troupe, Rouge. Executive chef Scott McLeod has created a seven-course menu with such delicacies as oysters, hamachi tartare with beluga caviar, black pepper-seared foie gras and a desert titled "ménage à trois" (white chocolate pot de crème, coconut tres leches and ginger-citrus cheesecake). Specialty cocktails will be paired with each course to lubricate diners even more.

But Denim ain't Benihana, where dinner is the show. For this, we are glad. Rouge, which has performed at the French Consulate, the World Economy Forum and Marc Jacobs and Betsey Johnson fashion shows, will provide more spice with their otherworldly talents. The teasing, tasteful bump-and-grinding will include vignettes starring the Glamazons, a group of confident, plus-sized performers, the Coquettes and Parisian soprano Nicole Renaud. This is their debut performance outside New York City, so please, be gentle. Unless they ask you to be rough.

Rouge: The New Bohemia, Thu., Sept. 25, 6:30-10 p.m., $125, Denim, 1712 Walnut St., 215-735-6700.

—Alex Richmond

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