Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Happy Birthday | James Gandolfini turns 48 today. Lance Armstrong is turning 38. Jada Pinkett Smith is 38 today, too. Designer Karim Rashid is 49. Comic actor Fred Willard is turning 70. Actor James Marsden is 36. The Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo is turning 33. The rapper Xzibit is turning 35. Senator Bob Bennett of Utah is 75. Actress and former Talk Soup host Aisha Tyler is 39. Singer Frankie Avalon is turning 69. Actress Holly Robinson Peete is 45 today. And Robert Blake, the former Baretta star who was acquitted of murder in 2005, turns 76 today. You'll find weekend birthdays listed below.More

• Hotel Griffou opens in the old Marylou's space this evening. [NYT, GS]
• New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni serves up a one-star review to a "somewhat confused and confusing" Rye in today's paper. [NYT]
• Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton has very good things to say about Aldea. [BN]
• Rumor has it Café Gitane will open at the Jane Hotel this fall. [TFB]
• Speaking of the Jane, here's another photo tour of the new bar. [Gothamist]
• Did you know that restaurants make more money when they remove dollar signs from the menu? Or that chefs place the dishes they want to sell on the center of the inside right page of their menu? It's true. [Baltimore Sun via GS] More

• It's a big night for Jean-Georges Vongerichten: He's cooking dinner at the United Nations for three past presidents (Carter, Bush I, Clinton) and one current president. Halibut's on the menu, in case you're wondering. [Crain's]
• Scott Sartiano and Richie Akiva of 1Oak and Butter are taking over the West 14th Street bar/club formerly known as The Plumm. [Page Six]
• Tom Colicchio's 'wichcraft is creating the menu for a Southwest Airlines-sponsored "pop-up lounge" in Bryant Park, slated to open June 19. [NYT]
• Merkato 55 (or Le 55, as it was known recently) is now bankrupt. [Crain's]
• Locanda Grande has a bakery café and it's now serving up breakfast. [GS]
• The city is evicting Citarella from its Harlem location. [NYT]
• Christian Albin, chef at the Four Seasons, died over the weekend. [NYT] 
• What you missed at the Big Apple BBQ this weekend. [Gothamist, Metromix]

Celebrity stylist Harry Josh and nightlife kingpin Nur Khan hosted "Spring Fling" at the Gramercy Park Hotel on Saturday night. A bevy of celebs and social scenesters turned up for the fête, including Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Naomi Campbell, Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady, Kate Hudson and mom Goldie Hawn, Ed Norton, Ashley Olsen, Spike Lee, Winona Ryder, Liv Tyler, Phillip Lim, Narciso Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Karolina Kurkova, Georgina Chapman, Rachel Zoe and Rodger Berman, Kate Bosworth and James Rousseau, Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr, Josh Hartnett, Daria Werbowy, Lily Donaldson, Molly Sims, Hamish Bowles, January Jones, Richie Akiva, Peter Som, Richard Chai, Christian Siriano, Cherry Jones, Jason Sudeikis, Guy Oseary, Lake Bell, Brian Atwood, Zoe Kravitz, and Quincy Jones. [PMc, VF, FWD] More

The Tribeca Film Institute hosted a benefit screening for the Quantum of Solace last night, which was followed by an afterparty at Tavern on the Green. Attendees included Daniel Craig, Becki Newton, Chris Diamantopoulos, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Craig Hatkoff and Jane Rosenthal, Julia Stiles, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Jeffrey Wright, Debra Messing, Andre Balazs, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Hoda Kotb, Jill Stuart, John Sykes, Judy McGrath, Howard Stringer, Rob Wiesenthal, Liya Kebede, Stewart Rahr, Molly Sims, and Serena Altschul. [PMc, Wireimage, GoaG] More

In the latest issue of Men's Vogue, Hud Morgan recounts a recent visit to Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's club 1OAK, where he finds that despite the meltdown, everyone's still having lots of fun. More

♦  Table 8 inside the Cooper Square Hotel isn't expected to open for another two months, but that didn't stop chef Govind Armstrong from giving a preview to 60 guests at hotelier Klaus Ortlieb's Tribeca loft last night. [NYO]
♦  The opening night of Tom Colicchio's Tuesday Dinner, went off without a hitch: Tom prepared a nine-course menu for 28 guests without breaking a sweat, and his wife showed up for moral support. [Forbes]
♦  Is 1OAK over? Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's club is now sending our email blasts asking to host your next party. [NYO]
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Happy Birthday | It will probably be a fun weekend for Lydia Hearst: the heiress  turns 24 today. Others blowing out candles today: Jimmy Fallon is 34. Soledad O'Brien of CNN is 42. Richie Akiva is 32, although the invite to his birthday party said it was his 30th. James Lipton is 82. Former HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman is 63. Defense attorney Barry Scheck is turning 59. And model Victoria Silvstedt is 34. On Saturday: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (pictured here with Lydia, a first we imagine) will be 54. Financier Joseph Perella will be 67. Sophia Loren will turn 74. Ad exec Scott Goodson will celebrate his 45th. Interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield will be 62. And Jossip's David Hauslaib will turn 25. On Sunday: Jane Rosenthal will be 52. Stephen King will be 61. Bill Murray will celebrate his 58th. Jerry Bruckheimer will be 63. Book publisher Geoff Kloske will turn 39. Natural History museum president Ellen Futter will be 59. Nicole Richie will be 27. Cheryl Hines will turn 43. Luke Wilson will be 37. And filmmaker Ethan Coen will be celebrating his 51st.

G Spa to Close | As of this Saturday night, G Spa, the lounge in basement of the Gansevoort that was started up in 2006 by Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano, will be a thing of the past. [DBTH]

Meet Daniel "Maimon" Kirschenbaum, Esq. He's only 29—he graduated law school in 2005—but it's safe to say that if the James Beard Foundation gave out an award to the biggest thorn in the side of New York-area restaurateurs, he'd rank up there with inspectors from the Department of Health and ungenerous restaurant critics. Kirschenbaum is a partner at a firm called Joseph & Herzfeld and the go-to man for servers and other restaurant employees when they take on their bosses for skimming tips or firing them without cause. Thanks to word of mouth (and well-placed ads on certain websites), Kirshenbaum has been obscenely prolific in the past couple of years. Just a few of his targets: Heartland Brewery, Nobu, Jean Georges,  B.B. King, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, One Little W 12, Abigail Kirsch, BLT Steak, BLT Prime,  BLT Fish, and 40/40.More

• A visiting Kim Kardashian was rushed to New York-Presbyterian late last night after she cut her foot on a glass coffee table at her hotel. [TMZ]
• A cop in LA pulled his gun on Diddy during a traffic stop this weekend. [NYDN]
• Marc Jacobs says he is a "perfect being" now that he has a buff bod. He also says he has 28 tattoos now and spends hours in the bathroom shampooing his hair and putting on moisturizer. [R&M]
• Paris Hilton is now hawking a line of polyester hair extensions. [NYDN]

1) At the New York premiere of spy thriller Traitor at the Regal Union Square last night, the film's stars Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Said Taghmaoui, and Mozhan Marno walked the red carpet along with director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Busta Rhymes, Jesse Williams, Estelle, Aubrey O'Day, and Nicole Miller. [NYO/Wireimage]

2) Further downtown mayhem surrounded the opening of the Nike sportswear store at 21 Mercer Street: Giant electronic billboards and a marching band heralded the arrival of Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams, who were joined by Mark Ronson (who DJed), Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Spike Lee, Katy Perry, Richie Akiva, Q-Tip, Justin Theroux, Alan Cumming, Cory Kennedy, Lily Cole, Alexander Wang, and many others. [Teen Vogue/PMc]More

1OAK's Image Issue | It's been a bad couple of weeks for Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's 1OAK. First Diddy's Maybach was (supposedly) smashed outside. Then, rather suspiciously, precisely the same thing (supposedly) happened to Paolo Zampolli's Rolls a week later. Yesterday, there were rumors of a drug raid, which turned out to be false. Today brings news of a gay bashing. Lesson to be learned: Stay away from the club if you're not straight, you own a cheesy car worth more than $500,000, or if you have any sense whatsoever.