La Maison de Sade

A Personal Note from Robin

In the spring of 2001, the following S&M supper club closed. For info on an existing New York City S&M supper club, click here.

May 1999 - There are any number of restaurants that offer a "truly unique dining experience" but precious few that live up to the claim. La Maison de Sade, which bills itself as an S&M supper club, is a clear exception. Care for the main course of corporal punishment with a side of verbal abuse – all served up by a stunning waitress in a latex corset? Then you've come to the right place. La Maison has got all this and more.

The restaurant, which adopted the S&M theme about a year and a half ago, is mostly a tourist haven where the suburban-looking clientele come to watch rubber and leather-clad mistresses and masters beat the stuffing out of the brave few who cough up the $20 fare for the service. Located at 206 West 23rd Street in NYC's Chelsea district, the room is bathed in a sensual red light. Chains dangle from the ceiling. A wooden rack, where slaves are handcuffed and whipped, greets you at the entrance. The cuisine is French but, of course, the food takes a clear back seat to the entertainment.

I dropped in on a Saturday night to witness the proceedings firsthand and to speak with the management and staff of La Maison. Our waitress, Mistress Bjanca, is a raven-haired beauty whose rubber mini-dress revealed a figure that's enough to knock any man out cold without her having to even lift a finger. She gave me a rundown of her clothing strategy: "If I walk in wearing Prada or Versace, people will just see a beautiful woman. If I walk in wearing rubber and high heels, they all fall on their knees."

Shortly into our meal, the first customer is led to the rack. He is dressed in a woman's garb, complete with wig and gown, and is yanked along via a leash by Mistress Hillary, a sharp-looking, well-shaped gal with a crop of short black hair. The mistress strips the fellow down to his skivvies, blindfolds him, and begins to apply a paddle, and then whip, to his rear end.

"Keep your head down," she instructs him, as she pushes the back of his crown until he is bent forward into prime paddling position. Mistress Hillary smacks his butt with a bit more force than I would have anticipated. She is obviously a healthy woman who enjoys her job. I'm duly impressed – she really works him over. FWAP! FWAP! FWAP! goes the sound of leather against flesh. Now, if that doesn't get your appetite up, I don't know what will.

I spoke with manager Margaret about the restaurant. "We're doing fairly well, actually," she said with a laugh that made her youthful Asian-American demeanor appear all the more pretty. "A lot of tourists come in for things they don't see in the Midwest. For $20 they can be tied up to the rack and spanked, humiliated."

Now that's something you don't get at Planet Hollywood. But are there any logistic problems running a place like La Maison de Sade? "We have to worry about the authorities," Margaret explained. "About the way people dress, the things that go on in here. What is considered proper, improper? We have to define the lines of when something is considered nudity or indecent exposure, a beating and not just a show of it. We have to keep an eye out for it. It's a specialized restaurant and a lot of people in the community are not as open-minded as us yet."

As the evening progressed, the public flogging continued, conducted mostly by Mistress Hillary, a true professional obviously devoted to the pursuit of public service. A couple of beatings were also conducted by Mistress Natalie, Mistress Melissa, and Master Aramis, a well-built and handsome fellow who was apparently brewed from some kind of master Latin race. (He was particularly popular with a bachelorette party that the restaurant was hosting at the time.) As Mistress Hillary continued to perform her handiwork, I noticed that my wife Pumpkin was observing the way a bush-league batter might look upon a major slugger for tips. This is when I decided to ask for the check.

As we left, the coat check girl, Mistress Jessica asked why I didn't participate in the festivities. I gave my usual response about being there solely for journalistic purposes. She gave me a skeptical glance which prompted me to add that my wife beats me daily for free. She seemed far more accepting of this explanation and offered a cordial goodbye as we made our way from the restaurant to the first cab uptown.

La Maison de Sade: 206 West 23rd Street, NYC

This S&M supper club is closed. A sandwich shop is in its place.

NYTimes review^{[Source 1]}

La Maison de Sade calls itself a French supper club, with a twist. Along with dinner and drinks, patrons can select from a menu of S-and-M activities, like a spanking from waiters and a humiliating seat in a high chair. But the restaurant, at 206 West 23d Street near Seventh Avenue, has come under the lash lately from the local community board, which says residents have complained about the place. The issue, the board says, is not what goes on inside, but the noise and the crowds.

On Wednesday, Community Board 4 voted to object to a renewal of the restaurant's liquor license. Although the State Liquor Authority decided to renew the license on Monday, board members were hoping the agency would reconsider, William Kelly, the district manager, said.

In a letter to the liquor authority, the board called the restaurant owner, Good Luck Cheng Corporation, and its management irresponsible and said it had received numerous complaints from neighboring residents during the last year. La Maison de Sade opened in October, replacing La Nouvelle Justine, an S-and-M cafe under the same ownership but different management.

One complaint to the board came in an unsigned letter on behalf of the residential tenants of the four-story building. Because of a Feb. 23, 1998, fire in an apartment that also closed La Nouvelle Justine, residents had to move out. We will be moving back in extremely soon, the letter said, urging the board to deal with a disruptive and noisy clientele, loud music, and crowds before someone gets really hurt.

The press secretary for the Department of Buildings, Paul Wein, said the agency had received similar complaints La Maison Sade. On Jan. 30, he said, inspectors visited and issued two building violations, one for setting up the room to seat 90 people, though the legal occupancy limit was 50, and the other for setting up the basement as a party room that could seat 54 patrons. Mr. Wein also said two electrical violations were issued, for defective wiring in the basement and for equipment there that was not properly grounded. He said he did not know what kind of equipment it was.

But the restaurant's manager, Margaret Lou, said Mi Ching Cheng, the president of the company that owns the restaurant, felt that he was being harassed. These things are not true, Ms. Lou said. She said the complaints were about the previous restaurant. We have been picked on nonstop, and it isn't fair, Ms. Lou said. We cleaned up this restaurant, but these people still think we are evil. DAVID KIRBY