Swifty’s — the old-school Upper East Side classic that served its last martini in 2016 to heartbroken regulars including designer Michael Kors and Estée Lauder heiress Aerin Lauder — is coming back, again, we exclusively hear.
And the old guard is taking over for the new, as Swifty’s will occupy the East Hampton space that housed the, uh, lively Sartiano’s. That bar — owned by Scott Sartiano, who also owns Noho club Zero Bond — was caught in constant conflict with locals last summer, getting upper-crust East Hamptonites’ knickers in a permanent twist.
Storied Swifty’s should be more their speed.
The famed eatery popped up at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., and has been a huge hit. It will move to East Hampton when the owners of the Colony take over the historic Hedges space there, we hear.
We’re told that the owner of Swifty’s, Robert Caravaggi, “will bring his old-school classics to the Hamptons.”
The New York Swifty’s was a gathering spot for socialites for years. It opened in 1999 as a successor to Mortimer’s, a snooty society spot where Caravaggi ran the front of the house. But the recipe at Swifty’s had locals mixing with the celebs and swells.
It was named for a beloved pug that took its moniker from iconic Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar
Said a patron to The Post when the place closed after 16 years: “I loved going there because you never knew who you’d see . . . Once I was in the back room next to Judy Collins, who talked to me like we were old friends.”
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was known to regularly land at a front table.
“The Manny” author Holly Peterson once described Swifty’s to Town & Country as that “clubby little cafe on Lexington Avenue.”
Sartiano had opened an outpost of his eponymous Soho restaurant at the Hedges following the village dashing his bid to open the celeb magnet Zero Bond there for fear it would be too rowdy. Then the town restored an old law that forced Sartiano’s to close at 10 p.m., The Post reported at the time.
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