Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Happy Birthday | She got married last weekend, but Ivanka Trump will be getting another big stack of presents today. It's her 28th birthday. Also celebrating: Simon Doonan, Barneys' inimitable creative director, is turning 57 today. Mega-agent Binky Urban is 63. Fashion photographer Mario Testino is 55. Gavin Rossdale is turning 42. NBC News' Andrea Mitchell is 64. Private equity bigwig Wes Edens is turning 48. Former Page Sixer Paula Froelich is 36. Henry Winkler turns 64. Actress Nia Long is turning 39. Kevin Pollak is turning 52. Harry Hamlin is 58. Cash Cab host Ben Bailey is turning 39. And Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin is 20. A few weekend birthdays after the jump.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]

Happy Birthday | Nightlife impresario Scott Sartiano turns 34 today. Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni turns 44. Dan Rather is 71. Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger is turning 52. Architect Zaha Hadid is 58. Novelist Kinky Friedman is 64. Jane Pauley is turning 58. Mega hotel developer Ira Drukier turns 63. Actor Dermot Mulroney is 45. Director Peter Jackson turns 47. Rob Schneider is 45. And Robert Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, is 41.

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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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

• Two waitresses at 1Oak say they were fired from Scott Sartiano's club so that they could be replaced with white girls. Now they have a lawsuit in the works. [P6]
• Michael Phelps was spotted making out with Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice at an Olympics party. Also, Phelps has signed on to write a book about his training regimen. [P6]
• Beth Ostrosky says rumors that she and Howard Stern were getting married last weekend were false, but that their real wedding is coming up soon. [ExtraTV]
• For David Blaine's next stunt, he's planning to hang upside down in Central Park for three days. [NYDN]

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.