‘New York became my college’: Michael Imperioli on his new bar, Broadway debut, and the city that saw him grow

Talking to Michael Imperioli in a bar is a funny twist of fate. His best known characters have terrible luck in them. The young Spider in Goodfellas dies while serving drinks. In The Sopranos, if the volatile Christopher Moltisanti finds himself in a bar, he’s likely overplaying his hand while trying to ascend to the top of Tony Soprano’s crew. And in The White Lotus, the tormented Dominic Di Grasso is next to a hotel bar when he realizes his son is involved with the same sex worker he’s been seeing.

But there is nothing foreboding about the Scarlet Lounge, the bar the actor and his wife Victoria Imperioli opened in Manhattan recently. The Upper West Side spot is elegant and full of personality – courtesy of Victoria’s work as an interior designer. Four days after its unveiling, and with two hours to go until the doors open to customers that evening, the Scarlet Lounge echoes with the sounds of doors opening and closing, conversation, and the occasional power drill.

The bar, a partnership between the Imperiolis and restaurateur Jeremy Wladis, seems like a natural result of the Imperiolis’ return to New York after years in Santa Barbara, California.

“When we came back here, it reminded me of what New York was like when I was