Enterprises invited business people to the new second storey club, last night to show off the new premises.

After years of the glitz of the disco era that brought the Club out of the 2001 Discotheque, the operation has finally grown up with a Bermuda contemporary look that the company believes is the way of the future.

The new interior is completely different to the various looks of the past, right down to the cherry wood floor with an Oriental rug. There are new fixtures and even a new menu of music.

Manager, Costanzo DiMeglio, said that a change was needed.

"It was a business decision,'' he said. "The Club wasn't working anymore, not for us and not for our clientele. We closed on January 1 and started dismantling the room. We've changed everything from the floor to the ceiling.

We think it is now a unique product.

"I'll have to go off to New York and seek new ideas for added features.'' The disco has been discarded, although there will be an exclusive concentration of music from the 1960s to the '80s. There will also be a jazz band on two or three nights a week.

Mr. DiMeglio, said that almost everything is new. The company has combined the nightclub with the Little Venice restaurant under one management and called it Little Venice Club.

"The music concept has changed,'' he said. "You still want people to dance, but we are catering to an older more sophisticated crowd.'' Downstairs there is a new menu and a few new changes including work that is not yet completed on giving the front of the building a new look. But upstairs is where the money has been spent in creating a cosy, new atmosphere.

The upstairs section will be open for lunch, complete with its Bermuda shutters motif that brightens the room considerably. They are expected to serve their first meal on April 25. They will, to some extent, be in competition with the Little Venice, downstairs.

A fireplace, which is not yet functional, decorates one end of the room splitting a wine cellar display case of top quality wines set in a brick-faced back wall.

Mr. DiMeglio pointed to the display of top quality wines that include a 1976 Petrus and a 1961 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. The latter is not for the casual diner at $1,000 a bottle.

But he says that connoisseurs will find that the wine prices are reasonable.

"Some restaurants mark their wines up as much as a 100 percent. But we want people to enjoy the top quality wines so we are marking them up about 10 percent to try to keep the cost of the quality wines down.

"There is a wine list with bottles from about $30 to $205. Or you can buy wine from our selection by the glass that would cost between $7.50 and $18.

"Even the $1,000-bottle of wine would retail for about $900.'' The flashy bar of the old Club has been replaced by a mahogany and marble bar and there are a number of specialty bottles of liquor for the discerning palate.

In the downstairs restaurant they have enhanced the Roman decor and upstairs will have new marble tables added.

Mr. DiMeglio said that the work represents the first done for a nightclub under the new building rules. Increased security features were added to protect patrons in the event of fire.

TOP MEN -- The new Little Venice Club's manager, Mr. Costanzo DiMeglio (left) and assistant manager, Mr. Thomas Mayer.