here are plenty of places to blow $200 or so on a $40 bottle of Grey Goose - but if it's the latest display of high-echelon pretension that you're aspiring to, look no further than Club V (or clVb). This boutique Yorkville nightclub launched Friday night, with Irfan Bukhari (interior designer of Budo, Red Drink and Fluid) in the driver’s seat.

By whipping the 5,600 square foot space that once housed PWDs and more recently, Momentos, into an “upscale members club,” Bukari’s aim was to inject new blood into Yorkville. Evidently, the diminishing interest in Momentos had forced a few good men to push the envelope with brisk results: The subterranean space is now tended at the half-lit doorfront (marked with a velvet rope) by a bouncer who served as a guard dog in a prior life.

If the mandate was to make a nightclub to complement the surrounding boutiques, Bukhari fulfilled this brief with some complexity. Inside, the waffled blonde-wood walls, cylindrical lights, and heavy and squat cocktail tables are offset by a liberal application of Bisazza rose mosaics and a continuous flow of illuminated candles which, reflected in the mirrors, create a warm amber hue.

The party unfolds in a series of sections, the most impressive of which is the strip of raised bottle service booths that take over one side of the space, overlooking the dance floor (lined with hundreds of tiny disco balls). About 60 bottle-buying clubbers can be accommodated at the banquettes pulled up to low tables, and another group can further seclude itself in a back section that can be curtained off. There are three bars in the space, all staffed by bartenders who have been styled by Salon Jie’s assistant creative director, Beni Sicilia.

A small nibbling menu is available, featuring the goods of Massimo Philobes, (LaVecchia, MoDo and Monte Cristo). And sommelier and mixologist Steve Campagnolo, who has just come back from a stint in Manhattan, is responsible for the creation of V’s signature and classic cocktails list.