Kim Stolz Opens New Hotspot, The Dalloway

Fashion model, activist, soon-to-be published author, MTV video jockey, and Citigroup derivates trader... It sounds like a too-good-to-be-true resume that only Barbie could own. Yet in fact, it just happens to be the ambitious career of our 2012 Out100 honoree, Kim Stolz. Most remembered as a competitor in America's Next Top Model cycle five--for a particularly steamy kiss she shared with fellow model-in-training, Sarah Rhoades--Stolz has since moved on to become a veritable jack-of-all-trades. With the opening of her Soho restaurant The Dalloway tonight, she can now check restaurateur off her to-do-it-all list.

Called The Dalloway, Stolz opened the boite with fellow reality TV-alum Leigh Dunn of The Real L Word at 525 Broome Street in a nice section of New York City's Soho neighborhood. And, in case you're wondering, yes: It does take its name from Virginia Woolf's literary heroine (and central conceit of Michael Cunningham's literary adaptation, The Hours). Not unlike Woolf's own progressive Bloomsbury Group, the aim of Stolz and Dunn's place is to bring together the LGBT community in a place where they can be themselves.

Speaking of the refreshingly relaxed atmosphere, Dunn told GO Magazine: "You don't want to walk into a place and feel like you have to be 'on' all the time, like you're on a freakin' movie set, you want to be able to go in even by yourself and order a dish and a glass of wine, and not feel like a loser being there."

The hotspot boasts a menu of Woolf-inspired cocktails, small plates (short ribs, tacos, and sliders), and a candle-lit atmosphere thatBlackBook is already calling "lesbian-leaning", "straight-friendly," and "date-ready."