What Makes a Good Party? A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.

On Wednesday night, two sturdy bouncers framed an unmarked doorway between a pizzeria and a vape shop on West 57th Street. Those granted entry descended a narrow staircase to the door of Silencio New York, where a new offshoot of the swank Parisian nightclub was hosting its inaugural party.

The Silencio on rue Montmartre has attracted a cross-section of Paris’s fashion, art and music scenes since it opened in 2011, with the involvement of the filmmaker David Lynch. (Its name references the eerie theater in Mr. Lynch’s 2001 movie “Mulholland Drive.”)

Although its new location near Columbus Circle is not slated to officially open until later this month, it opened its doors early for a celebration for “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” the power couple’s exhibition highlighting Black art stars that opens at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday.

Close to 9 p.m., rushed preparations were still underway. Bartenders were assembling bouquets of roses, and a staff member on a ladder was mounting a sheer red curtain next to the D.J. booth. A few hours later, the room was crowded with guests including Kehinde Wiley, the painter whose work is central to the “Giants” exhibition; Max Hollein, the director and chief of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Joan Smalls, the model; and Marc Spiegler, the former global director of Art Basel.