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The Owners of Charles Are Revealed

Doug Akin, Emilia Grabowsky, Morgan Shara, and Cobi Levy
Doug Akin, Emilia Grabowsky, Morgan Shara, and Cobi Levy Photo: Patrick McMullan

If two’s a trend, then consider fashion designers opening restaurant-lounges a trend (think Matt Levine and the Eldridge). Consulting chef John DeLucie was keeping mum about the owners of Charles earlier today, but a reader tells us they are none other than Doug Akin and Cobi Levy. A DNR item describes Levy, the man behind fashion lines Primp, Tyler Speed, and most recently Dillen & Co., as “a stylish and prosperous, 31-year-old creative entrepreneur” who can be found “holding court in various nightclubs in New York.” According to WWD, which broke the story of Levy’s involvement in Charles, he has spared no expense allowing designer Rafael de Cárdenas to follow his inspirations: Alfred Adolf Loos’s 1908 American Bar in Vienna and Halston’s townhouse.

De Cárdenas, who designed the homes of Parker Posey, Jessica Stam, and Jeanine Lobell, “sourced pieces of Thirties French wallpaper and hard-to-find Seventies and Eighties furniture from dealers in Miami and Los Angeles,” and has divided the former Les Deux Gamins in two, “with a private back room that can be curtained off, the better to conceal any dinnertime shenanigans. He lit the restaurant with 112 dressing room lights and swathed the rooms in shades of gray and luxe materials such as suede, velvet and polished nickel.” Nice! So let’s see the place.

Charles In Charge [WWD, subscription required]
Earlier: John DeLucie Introduces Us to Charles

The Owners of Charles Are Revealed