Crowded with edgy Hollywood types, the Apple Lounge reintroduces the New York notion of being tight with your neighbors. When the club hits full swing and the party gets packed into this tiny lounge, everyone gets a lil’ closer.

Native New-Yorker Melnick co-owns the former Pearl space with chef Bryan Ogden located downstairs from Apple Restaurant. The lounge is an intimate black-walled room with a red apple disco ball as the sparkling centerpiece inspired by party-girl/promoter Melnick’s love of the Big Apple and The Beatles (Apple Records).  DJ’s spin red-hot old school hip-hop and house from the glowing blood-red DJ booth while old NY movies play silently on a flat screen against one wall.  Waitresses, in uniforms designed by Nikki Hilton, serve up cocktails to the polished WeHo crowd.  Diners, don’t count on dinner reservations to grant access to the exclusive lounge.  How does one get on the list?  “Attitude,” says Melnick. “What you’re wearing, who you are… we like to mix it up in there, get the right vibe.”

The low ceilings may cause the claustrophobic to voyage upstairs to the plush patio for air where young Hollywood smokes and chatters away in cabanas or on couches. The paparazzi linger outside the glass walls of the patio as a nice reminder that you are on VIP property, where Melnick’s friends Lindsay Lohan or the Hiltons might drop in anytime. —Jessamyn Cuneo