4 min read
Every good night at Les Deux began the same way, with the Rolling Stones’ “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” blasting over the sound system. It’s the kind of confident banger that works in a club on a heat streak. “We would be open 20 nights in a row,” says co-owner Sylvain Bitton. “There was no bad night,” says Evan Ross, the actor and musician who was a regular. “Not one bad night.”
L.A. has always craved places where people could mingle and break rules in the land of sprawl. There was Ciro’s in the 1940s, the Whisky a Go Go in the ’80s, the Viper Room in the ’90s. It’s been 20 years, but the legendary Les Deux—a place that dominated L.A. nightlife for four years and all but created the TV-to-tables pipeline—has never been more top of mind. Hilary Duff, currently in the midst of a comeback tour, posted a video of her stumbling toddler with the caption “leaving Les Deux 2006.” A recent ad for Flamingo Estate capitalized on its legacy: “If Les Deux was still open, this soap would be in the restroom.”
Courtesy Sylvain Bitton
Sylvain Bitton, JT Torregiani, and David Jarrett in the courtyard of Les Deux.
Les Deux didn’t start out as a nightclub. In 1996 French designer and legendary night owl Michèle Lamy relocated a condemned 1904 Craftsman once owned by James Cagney to a sleepy side street off the Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. Les Deux Cafés quickly became a celebrity hideout, drawing the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Joni Mitchell, and Madonna. “Past the herb garden, a path leads to a wondrously civilized outdoor dining space,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. In 2003 the doors closed with little warning: Lamy moved on to designer Rick Owens and to Paris, according to the same paper.
By 2006 the space had been empty for years. The Dolce Group, which was behind hotspots like Geisha House and Dolce, saw an opportunity. “Lamy still had her notepad there, cigarette, red lipstick on them, ashes still in the ashtray,” says Bitton, who was among a group of owners that included former trainer JT Torregiani and David Jarrett, a USC student who answered a Craigslist ad. Bitton too had hustled his way behind the ropes, having previously worked at Saks Fifth Avenue. It was from this crew that Bitton, then 25, raised $600,000 to help launch Les Deux. An investment that was paid back, he says, within six months.
Courtesy Sylvain Bitton
Drink tickets from Les Deux, where celebrities, billionaires, and even presidents partied in Los Angeles from 2006 until 2010.
Though the vibe was intimate, Les Deux could hold up to 400 people. Inside they kept the European aesthetic, including Lamy’s original red and gold brocade wallpaper. No strobes on the dancefloor, because ew. The lighting was “succulent,” the Los Angeles Times said. “Even a toad would look handsome at Les Deux.” The outside tables lining a three-tier fountain, which was often filled with rose petals, were reserved for celebrities. “I’m telling you, the patio was just everything,” says Ross. (His mom, Diana Ross, told him the scene was reminiscent of “when she was at Studio 54 with Steve Rubell.”)
An unusually long hallway made every guest the star of their own entrance. “You’d walk down this 20-foot hall, you’d turn the corner, and it was like the coolest people you’ve ever seen in your life. Celebrities, girls, billionaires, sheikhs, presidents,” Bitton says. On a single night in 2007, the crowd might include the Olsen sisters, the Duff sisters, the Simpson sisters, Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, and Tom from MySpace.
Courtesy Sylvain Bitton
JT Torregiani and Lindsay Lohan at Les Deux.
The same celebrities came so often that Bitton had plaques made for their tables. Ross at 101. Wilmer Valderrama at 102. Nicky and Paris Hilton at 103. “I was told that was cheesy,” Bitton says. “Then people would call and ask if their plaques were shined up.” The effects of near-weekly dispatches of The Hills proselytized the place to millions of barely legal millennials like me, but the true mix was courtesy of veteran promoter Josh Richman. “We would stick them in a far corner, because we didn’t want them mucking up our crowd,” Richman says of the young MTV cast. “We never let them film in the core of the party, ever.” Prince only wanted candle lighting, so he got it, upstairs away from the melee. Though Les Deux was licensed as a restaurant, the only food served was $250 cupcake towers and bowls of hastily made pasta whipped up by Frank the Chef when Hollywood Vice was on patrol. The night was over when either Interpol or Bauhaus played. Until then, everyone chugged Red Bull Vodkas.
Courtesy Sylvain Bitton
“”The courtyard was beautiful, but nobody saw Les Deux in daylight,” club owner Sylvain Bitton tells T&C.
The buzz, fueled by Perez Hilton’s frequent dispatches from the parking lot, was undeniable. People once reported a night of “celebrity gridlock,” with Lindsay Lohan showing Gwen Stefani her scars from a recent appendectomy while Scarlett Johansson and Rachel Bilson held court at a table nearby. The rumor that Paris Hilton went straight to Les Deux after 23 days in jail is true. The rumor that Britney Spears once applied for a job is half true. “She would just come there and hang out,” Jarrett says. “Les Deux was a sanctuary for her.”
“You’d walk down this 20-foot hall, you’d turn the corner, and it was like the coolest people you’ve ever seen in your life. Celebrities, girls, billionaires, sheikhs, presidents.”
No one had a chance to mourn the end. By then, bottle-service spots for banker bros were already on the rise. Who could predict that spontaneity, bad angles, and celebrities behaving badly in public would become relics of the past—or how badly they would be missed?
When Les Deux officially closed its doors, in July 2010, the party was still going full tilt. Another good night in a never-ending string of them. Bitton was there. So was Ross. In many ways the lore outlives the evidence of a club that existed before the grid. Maybe it’s better that way. “I’m proud of being known for something that was excellent,” Richman says. “I don’t know anywhere as rocking as when I walked out of there that last night.”
This story appears in the September 2026 issue of Town & Country.
Justine Harman is a Webby-winning podcaster, a 2022 National Magazine Award finalist, and the former features director at Glamour. Listen to new episodes of KILLED HERE.