Leave it to Honolulu's most club-savvy and inventive after-hours promoters to make sure VIP guests of Two at Palomino Restaurant-Rotisseria-Bar receive an entry worthy of their $150 to $300 cash outlay.

Reserve a booth or bottle service for up to six BFFs at Flash Hansen and Matty Boy Hazelgrove's latest fashionably upscale Saturday club night and you'll skip the longish queue to get in. No surprise there.

You also get a personal escort up Palomino's dramatic port-cochere-surveying outdoor staircase, the pleasure of passing folks queuing to fork over cover at the front door, and the notice (and perhaps, envy) of patrons standing on the sidelines as you are whisked past them to your table. The pricier the VIP reservation, the lengthier the walk and number of velvet ropes and private bars passed on the way to your table.

You have just more than 24 hours until doors open at Two. Start pooling friends and cash now.

Wrapping downtown's Harbor Court condominium mezzanine in a lengthy semi-circle, Palomino's late-'90s-mod interiors have always seemed ideal for dressy post-dinner-service clubbing.

A wall of large picture windows overlooks the bright lights of Ho-nolulu Harbor from nearly every table in the room. Large Italian blown-glass chandeliers drop from the restaurant's high ceilings. Light fixtures are largely gilded and floors largely marble.

For the promoter with an eye for potentially lucrative detail, numerous wood-accented, scarlet-cushioned booths seem tailor-made for reserved-seat bottle service. The large dining area is held captive to the art of French cubist painter Fernand Léger. A separate bar area with cozy rear booths ideal for holding court VIP-style also promises a sweet clubby experience.

Flash and Matty aren't the first promoters to host a party at Palomino. But they are the first to get the go-ahead from the corporate brass to throw down a regular late-evening event there.

True, "go-ahead" means the guys are allowed to host Two — get ready for this confusing mouthful — only every other second Saturday of the month (after tomorrow's edition, the next one should be in January). But Two comes off a worthy enough upscale addition to their long-solid Skyline monthly.

The crowd? Let's just call them the Skyline beautiful — mostly fashion-conscious twenty- and thirtysomethings who tend to be selective about club nights out.

Booths come in various sizes and locations: tucked discreetly into cozy corners, directly overlooking the harbor lights, or positioned where everyone can see you and you can see them.

On the September night we stopped by, the dining room dance floor featured a surprise-free soundtrack of Top 40 pop, hip-hop and R&B. (The guest presence of always-inspired San Francisco-based mash-up legend DJ Mei-Lwun at tomorrow's Two should remedy that.) House music is played in the brighter lit, wall-to-wall crowded main bar.

Grand entrances were still being made post-midnight.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.