Perfectly groomed and ready to strut their stuff, the stars dazzled in their Met Gala looks last night. Sure, they looked cute. But you know who would look even cuter in those couture styles? Dogs.
Pet Couturier Anthony Rubio is making that fever dream a reality this year, and you can attend. He’s hosting The Pet Gala at the AKC Museum of the Dog in Midtown East on Monday, May 20. Expect to see up to 20 Met Gala looks re-created for dogs at pet fashion’s biggest night.
Rubio is no stranger to creating couture looks for pets. He regularly hosts pup fashion shows during New York Fashion Week. And he’s recreated Met Gala looks for the past decade, though usually just to share photos with journalists and social media. His most famous re-creations include looks worn by Salma Hayek, Cardi B, Rihanna, and Pedro Pascal.
A passionate advocate for animals, Rubio hosted his first in-person Pet Gala event last year, recreating 12 looks worn by celebs and even replicating the iconic backdrops at the Met Museum in miniature form.
While last year’s event was invite-only, this year’s Pet Gala is open to all; tickets cost $300/person. The dogs will walk on a 24-foot red carpet and pose for photos in front of floral walls. The evening’s program will also include a runway show of the stars and conclude with a sit-down dinner for patrons. Rubio will be on hand to talk about his inspiration and the work that went into creating these iconic looks for pets.
“I love to challenge myself,” Rubio says. “The designers for The Met Gala have months to create their looks for celebrities to shine on the red carpet. I have two weeks to recreate them and for dogs. When I design for my Fashion Week runway shows, it’s all my aesthetic. For The Pet Gala, I have to figure out how to translate garments worn by humans onto our four-legged stars. Humans can suffer for their fashion, but dogs will not. Their comfort and safety is my top priority. It’s a challenge I’m always up for. I thrive under the pressure.”
For The Pet Gala, I have to figure out how to translate garments worn by humans onto our four-legged stars.
With its display of more than 180 sculptures and paintings of four-legged furballs, The AKC Museum of the Dog will serve as the perfect backdrop for this dynamic dog event.
“Having borne witness to the stunning fashions of the Met Gala for decades, it was instantly clear that the AKC Museum of the Dog is the only suitable home for Anthony Rubio’s Pet Gala,” said Christopher Bromson, Executive Director of the AKC Museum of the Dog. “Just like the Met, the Museum boasts one of the world’s most impressive collections of dog art. On May 20, it will be the steps of the AKC Museum of the Dog that brim with glamour, where breathtaking pieces will wind their way through our gallery. Together, we’ll celebrate these creations for what they truly are: art.”
To give you a sense of what to expect from the Pet Gala, here are a few of Rubio’s previous Pet Gala creations:
Photograph: By Hideki AonoPhotograph: By Hideki AonoPhotograph: By Hideki AonoPhotograph: By Hideki AonoPhotograph: By Hideki AonoPhotograph: By Hideki Aono
“Let Me Tell You” is a series of columns from our expert editors about NYC living, including the best things to do, where to eat and drink, and what to see at the theater. They publish each Tuesday so you’re hearing from us each week. Last time, TONY Editor Shaye Weaver argued that NYC needs more space for roller skating.
NYC’s nightlife didn’t die in the pandemic, it just went underground. Now, parties (at least the good ones) are harder to find and require some sleuthing on social media and a little word of mouth. If anything, NYC’s nightlife splintered—spots used to cater to general crowds but now they host collectives and the communities they represent.
And odds are, it’s been a while since you used Time Out New York to find out about the latest and greatest parties and clubs in NYC. Once the pandemic hit, coverage had to be scaled down since these places and parties shut down. Only now can we hit the ground running and resurrect our nightlife coverage thanks to Things to Do Editor Rossilynne Skena Culgan and Staff Writer Ian Kumamoto, who joined our team earlier this year.
Before joining Time Out New York in January, Ian wrote about culture, entertainment and identity for several places including VICE, CNN, HuffPost, Them, Mic and others. But in his free time, he is also a DJ who goes by oyystersauce and founder of Whorechata, a collective for queer and trans people of color.
Ian writes from experience and a deep love for going out.
“I always tell people that I was raised by the nightclub,” he says. “As an Asian-Latino queer kid, I spent most of my high school and college years trying to find myself in bars, clubs and late-night saunas. It was in those spaces that I met people who empowered me when I couldn’t find a way to love myself, and eventually led me to create Whorechata.”
Already, Ian has completely revamped Time Out’s nightlife coverage, from completely and regularly updating our best parties and club nights in NYC this month feature to hopping on news about new hot spots opening up across the city, like Gabriela. He’s also launched his own bi-monthly column called “Out Late” on Time Out that dives into the scene at NYC’s underground parties so you have all the deets before you go out. He’s already attended and written about queer kink party Le Bain, K-pop rave Bias, Red Lantern District’s all-Asian drag party, and Mercury in Reggaeton.
Time Out has also covered issues found within the industry and those brave enough to address them, including those fighting against misogyny (Support Women DJs), underrepresentation (Jezz Chung) and societal gender norms (Stud Country).
“The dance floor is a space of catharsis, of imagination, of community, of drama, and for many marginalized people, it remains a place of survival,” Ian says. “I maintain that the right party can change your life and shift your view of the world.”
All of this is to say if you want the latest on where to go out, stick with us and regularly check out our revamped Nightlife page. And for any nightlife and party tips, you can email him at ian.kumamoto@timeout.com.
New Yorkers love pizza—hell, we love it so much that we’ll eat a pizza box made of pizza. So the Greenwich Village restaurant Savta is being very savvy, then, by replacing ordinary old sandwich bread with, you guessed it, pizza dough on its newly launched lunch menu.
Available Wednesdays through Fridays from noon to 5pm, the pizza dough sandwiches are the centerpieces of the lunch menu, which includes regular ‘za, vegetable dishes and more. The not-so-traditional sammies include Italian-inspired options like the “Parma Affair” (with grilled chicken, San Daniele prosciutto, burrata and pesto), the “Caprese” (with frisée, tomato, burrata, balsamic glaze and basil), and the “Prosciutto Cotto” (with marinara sauce, ham, frisée, mushrooms and burrata).
You can also get the bagel-esque “Smoked Salmon,” loaded with cream cheese, tomato and red onion, as well as the “Bleecker Street Hot Dog,” which comes with two beef sausages nestled with onions on a pillowy bed of pizza dough bread, drizzled with ketchup, mustard and sweet relish. Now, we know there’s a lot of contention around whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich, but we’ll let you decide which side of the bun, er, pizza dough you’re on.
“I put a lot of love into the pizzas, too, fermenting the dough for 3-4 days to create a flavorful crust,” owner Vincent Benoliel—who’s also behind Pasta Corner in midtown—previously told Time Out. If you’re rather picky about your pizzas (you like them round), there’s plenty of traditionally shaped options, from classics like the “Pomodoro”(with tomato, basil and fior di latte cheese) to signatures like the “Spianata” (piccante calabrese salumi, grilled peppers and fior di latte) and more modern pies like the “Anchovy” (with shishito peppers, burrata, cherry tomatoes and garlic).
You can enjoy your pizza of any configuration, sandwich or otherwise, al fresco throughout the warm-weather season at the restaurant’s back patio or sidewalk seating. In the meantime, check out some of Savta’s pizza dough creations and other dishes below:
Photograph: Francesco Sapienza | Caprese pizza dough sandwich at SavtaPhotograph: Francesco Sapienza | Bleecker Street Hot Dog at Savta
Today, the Cannabis Advisory Board (CAB) convened to receive updates from the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) regarding the burgeoning growth of New York’s legal cannabis market. With over 118 adult-use retailers now operational across the state, and hundreds of licenses in the pipeline, OCM’s continued focus on education, mentorship, and equity has laid the…
“Out Late” is Time Out’s nightlife and party column by DJ, Whorechata founder, and Staff Writer Ian Kumamoto, which will publish every other Tuesday. The previous edition highlighted Mercury in Reggaeton, a party that only happens during retrogrades.
New York is a city that has always thrived off grit: We would be nothing without our smelly basements, our dungeons and our dive bars, the fertile ground from which all club culture sprung. But we’re living at a time when the city is getting prohibitively expensive for the freaks and weirdos that once ran nightlife, which means it’s getting harder and harder to find parties that are authentically unhinged.
That’s why when Venus Cuffs started DMing me last year, I knew we would be besties. Through multiple conversations we’ve had over the past year, I’ve learned about her expansive vision for nightlife, a vision that involves women, queer people, Black people, people of color, chaos, and a lot of skin. To me, Venus Cuffs is more than a party producer: She’s an activist, a cultural institution, and in her own sense, a healer. But I’ll get into that later.
Although Venus has been producing underground parties for years, she began producing her iconic fetish cabaret show, Cuffs Cabaret, in September 2023. For a while, she wanted to produce a show that was sexy and kinky but also classy, the type of event where people could sit down and drink a good cocktail while watching performers get tied up and spanked. But she also wanted to create something that was immersive, where attendees could begin to explore their own relationships to pleasure.
The show is celebration of what it means to be erotic.
Cuffs Cabaret shows typically involve an hour of performances followed by a 45-minute intermission where the audience is encouraged to get up and try out different fetish stations. At her last party, there was a wax station, a spanking station, and an area where you could get tied up. “The show is celebration of what it means to be erotic,” Venus tells me. “I feel like we’re going through a second wave of hating sex workers and rolling back LGBTQ rights. We’re reverting back to a puritan culture where people are scared of sex all over again. But sex is how we all got here.”
The second half of the cabarets involve more kink-centered performances and a segment called “Dirty Confessions,” where Venus reads anonymous handwritten confessions that audience members submit about their wildest, funniest, and most erotic sexcapades.
Venus Cuffs’ passion for sex comes from a deep place: She understands how important it is in order for us to have a good relationship to our bodies and by extension, ourselves. As a Black woman, she often felt limited in the ways she was allowed to express her own sexuality. That began to change once she began working as a dominatrix, an era in her life when she leaned into a more expansive vision of her own desirability. “One thing that domination taught me was to realize my own power,” Venus tells me. She says a lot of the men she worked with were very heteronormative and alpha male types in their everyday lives, but as soon as they came to her, they wanted to be totally dominated, talked dirty to, and their wallets emptied. “It changed the way I see power in this world.”
Behind closed doors, people are freakier than they often let on.
What Venus is trying to convey is that we have to realize that behind closed doors, people are freakier than they often let on. She’s seen what people ask for when nobody is watching, and she wants us to be more honest about our desires and be brave enough to pursue them.
But there are many elements in the world that prevent most of us from fully experiencing pleasure. None of us walk into the bedroom with a blank slate; everyone has their insecurities, their own set of conditioning that tells them, for one reason or other, that they’re not sexy enough. But keeping those voices inside your head only makes them louder. Venus wants people to know, in a non-corny way, that every body is beautiful and absolutely worthy of feeling really good.
And that’s where the healing comes in, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t fit neatly into America’s version of who is desirable. Venus brings people from all walks of life into a room, dims the lights and gives her audience permission to explore. Her cabarets are filled with sensuality, but they’re also imbued with laughter and lots of jokes—Venus is the type of person who doesn’t take herself too seriously. Her joy is infectious and it’s an important reminder that nothing is that deep. It’s through her and her cabarets that I’m really beginning to decode the primary ingredient for pleasure: It’s playfulness, namely the type of playfulness that had Venus roaring with laughter while she spanked me at her last party.
It’s ok if people feel nervous about coming into a space like this, but I just want them to exist in the moment.
“You might not always know what you’re walking into, but it’s always going to be a good time,” Venus tells me. “It’s ok if people feel nervous about coming into a space like this, but I just want them to exist in the moment.”
I attended her last cabaret on Sunday, April 28, which included performances by KissMeDeadlyDoll, Cute but Deadly, Pain Au Chocolat, Gigi Holliday, Amadeus Lopez, Ruby, Quinn Reeru, Nita B Yellowcakes, Casper, Carnal Authority and Pan Daddy. This is how it went.
Photograph: By Grant Hao-Wei Lin
An hour-by-hour account of a night at Cuffs Cabaret
4pm
I arrive to the venue on time and there’s a line of people waiting outside. Most are women, and many are wearing black.
4:20pm
I get seated at my table at the center of the space, and on the table, there’s a complimentary O-ring and two sheets of paper for attendees to write their dirty confessions. Nita B Yellowcakes is gogo dancing in knee-high pleasers and feeling herself to the music in front of the DJ. On stage, there are two people and one of them is tied by a chain to a spreader bar while the other is kissing their body and holding a sharp knife. I’m intrigued.
4:44pm
Venus’ voice booms overhead. Her tone is erotic and very theatrical. “I want you to forget the world outside of these doors,” she says. “Taboo doesn’t exist here.” After her monologue, Cuffs appears out of nowhere and apologizes for being so dramatic.
4:45pm
Performances start and each is extremely shocking in its own way. There’s one I’ll remember for a very long time by aerialist Amadeus Lopez, who hangs on an aerial hoop with his mouth and spins. The whole time I’m caressing my jaw—somehow, my mouth hurts.
Photograph: By Grant Hao-Wei Lin
5:30pm
The 45-minute intermission beings and everyone disperses throughout the space. There are people making out, dancing, or getting drinks at the bar. Venus is spanking people with a flogger over a spanking bench on stage, and she summons me to come up.
Let me give you an idea of how much I respect Venus Cuffs: I let her spank me in front of dozens of strangers and it’s a Sunday, the Lord’s Day.
Let me give you an idea of how much I respect Venus Cuffs: I let her spank me in front of dozens of strangers and it’s a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Deep down, though, I secretly wanted her to ask. It’s an honor to get spanked by Venus Cuffs.
6:10pm
The performances continue and there’s an iconic showcase by KissMeDeadlyDoll tying someone up in very elaborate knots before they’re lifted over the stage.
Photograph: By Grant Hao-Wei Lin
6:33pm
Gigi Holliday, an icon of the burlesque community, performs a sexy dance to “Giver” by The Suffers.
6:40pm
Venus reads people’s Dirty Confessions she collected from the crowd earlier. People are hollering and gasping and clapping. It’s such an iconic way to wrap up the night. Now I know a lot about the strangers sitting around me. Maybe I know a little too much, but at Cuffs Cabaret, there’s no such thing.
How to catch the next Cuffs Cabaret
Where: Locations change, so make sure to keep an eye on Venus’ Instagram.
When: Several times a year.
Cost: $40-$80
How to get in: Buy a ticket whenever they drop on Venus’ Instagram.
The vibe: Sexy and classy with plenty of shock factors.
Night market season is officially here! And New York has plenty of great night markets returning to our city’s streets this spring and summer, spotlighting borough pride (Bronx Night Market, Queens Night Market) and celebrating cultures, like the Latin Night Market, which is back to spotlight the cuisines and traditions of the Latin diaspora.
Attracting nearly 20,000 visitors to the Dyckman area during its inaugural festival last year, the Latin Night Market will again showcase the best of what the rich South and Central American cultures have to offer on Saturday, May 17, from 4pm to 10pm at 238-224 Dyckman Street (Quisqueya Plaza).
This year’s festivities will a curated lineup of 50 vendors offering a diverse array of Latin, Carribean and Hispianic flavors: you can expect bites like empanadas, tacos, smoked chicharron, mozzarella arepas, skewered meats and more from Tacos El Guero, Pinche Vegana NYC, Mia’s Cocina, Twisted Potato, Petisco Brazuca, Rosie’s Empanadas, Downeast Lobstah, Perros Locos NYC, Pollos Napoles, Criollo Burgers, Chocolicious NYC, Jugo Juice, Treat Yourself Jerk and more. There will also be free samples, while supplies last from sponsors including Vita Coco, Coke Spiced and Liquid Death.
Along with the great grub, the vibrant affair will include live musical performances featuring genres such as salsa, reggae, rumba, Latin pop, hip hop and more. Among the performers are the Marching Cobras drumline, DJ Riddim, DJ Ultra Violet, salsa band Orquesta Los 9 Del Sabor and flamenco dancers from Xianix Barrera. There will also be an array of family-friendly activities, art installations, raffles, giveaways, and more.
Speaking of freebies, the festival itself is free to attend; simply RSVP over on Eventbrite. By RSVP’ing, you are automatically entered into the aforementioned raffles and giveaways. And if you RSVP with a donation to local small business, you will enjoy be entered for the chance to win a $100 food-and-drink voucher to use at the event!
Check out this year’s full food vendor list as well as musical lineup and sponsors below:
Did you know that New York State leads the nation in cases of children with elevated blood levels? In fact, 12 percent of the children born in New York in 2019 – 28,820 children – have been diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels. And studies show that Black children living below the poverty line are twice as likely to…
Restaurants as popular and as hard to get into as Lucali are always all over social media, but Internet users may have noticed a recent surge in Yelp reviews and comments surrounding the Brooklyn pizza joint. You can thank celebrity rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar for that.
Let’s back it up: this past April, Drake released his track “Taylor Made Freestyle,” in which he mentions (read: disses) Lamar’s New York apartment—a duplex penthouse near the water at 90 Furman in Brooklyn Heights—about 15 minutes from Lucali via car.
Lamar’s response, which is part of a larger feud between the superstar artists, is included in his new song, “6:16 in LA.”
Lamar raps: “My visa, passport tatted, I show up in Ibiza/Lucali’s dwellings in Brooklyn just to book me some pizza.”
As the Internet is wont to do, fans of the artists and mere spectators of the pretty amusing battle quickly headed to Yelp to post reviews of the 18-year-old New York business that, let’s be honest, is already pretty freaking popular.
“Woke up at 6:16 craving a Lucali Plain Pie. Had to Fly From LA to Grab a slice. Worth it!” one commenter wrote.
“Kendrick sent me here, hoping this place gets the ’New Ho King’ attention it deserves,” reads another review.
Do the reviews actually tell us something about Lamar’s and Drake’s beef? Not really. Do they help one rapper gain points over the other? We can’t see how. Are the comments entertaining? Absolutely.
For what it’s worth, Lucali’s owner Mark Iacono told Eater that it’s been “business as usual” since the new songs were released. That comes as no surprise whatsoever. We’re here for the laughs and the good raps, though.
Rachel McAdams giggles after flubbing a request to say her name into the camera and identify herself as a Tony Award nominee. “I’m not used to saying it yet!” she explains, directing a gleaming smile at playwright Amy Herzog, her boothmate at a Meet the Nominees event at the Sofitel Hotel.
McAdams is currently making her Broadway debut in Herzog’s Mary Jane. She plays the title character: a single mother caring for her chronically ill young son, with support from a variety of other women. (“The play does not dwell in helplessness,” wrote Time Out’s Adam Feldman in his five-star review. “It’s more interested in how people try to help.”)
“I am honored to play this part every day,” says McAdams, who moved with her husband and two young children to New York City for the opportunity. “I’m so happy this beautiful play has been received positively by so many people. It fills me up.”
The subject of the play is a personal one for Herzog, who is a double Tony nominee this year for Mary Jane and her adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People: When she wrote it, she was tending to a daughter who was born with the muscular disease nemaline myopathy. Carrie Coon starred in the play’s 2017 runs at Yale Repertory Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop. In casting the role for Broadway, director Anne Kauffman was looking for a very particular quality. “Mary Jane is an unusual character: She is sunny in a way that’s actually sincere,” Kauffman says. “I don’t think you get that kind of sincerity in people a lot. And Rachel McAdams exudes that.”
Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy | Mary Jane
“Annie and I were gasping hearing her voice,” Herzog recalls of the first reading with McAdams. “We got to perform together,” McAdams chimes in, grabbing Herzog’s hand. “Oh, that’s right!” Herzog exclaims as they continue to hold hands. “And Amy has incredible comedic timing,” McAdams makes sure to point out.
“It was like a childhood dream that I got to act with her,” Herzog says before choking up a bit—leading McAdams to get emotional too. “There’s so much in her that is Mary Jane.”
Although she played a stage actress in cult TV series Slings & Arrows, it’s been 25 years since the last time McAdams did live theater. Broadway, she says, has been “otherworldly.” She’s been relearning the closeness that comes from being part of a small cast, and part of the Broadway world at large. “I didn’t know about that lovely tradition where every cast signs a little good-luck wish—break a leg—for every other cast on opening night, and then they hang it up backstage before you go on,” she says. “It’s like high school when everybody signs your yearbook. It’s really sweet.”
That sense of community extends to awards season, which feels different from her experience as a 2016 Oscar nominee for Spotlight. “With the Oscars, you don’t really see each other,” she says. “There’s a few luncheons and that sort of thing, but it’s not like this.” She would love to catch up with her fellow Best Actress nominee, Mother Play’s Jessica Lange, who played her mother in the 2012 film The Vow: “I did tell her how much I loved the show, but I’d love to pick her brain!”
Meanwhile, McAdams is just “going with the flow” in navigating her still unfamiliar role as a Tony nominee, and enjoying the company she’s keeping. “Everybody knows each other. Everybody’s so happy for each other,” she says. “It feels like a family.”
Mary Jane is playing at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through June 16. You can buy tickets here.
