In the über-posh world of new San Francisco, vip bon vivants look to see and be seen slipping into members-only clubs and secret party rooms off limits to the madding crowd. Have you received your invitation yet?

Tosca, the legendary North Beach hot spot, was packed on a Thursday night in October. Many hopefuls were vying to get inside the recently revamped venue when Girls star Lena Dunham, along with her entourage, showed up for dinner unannounced. Instead of being turned away, the group was whisked past diners, and even past the famed back room of Tosca. Instead, they ate in the private, eight-person “chef’s lounge” upstairs, which overlooks the kitchen. That’s right, Tosca has a super-exclusive party room. To hold court at this table, you’ve simply got to be cool enough.

“There are those who think we bought Tosca just so I could actually get into the back room,” says new owner Ken Friedman, who admits the rumors “might be true….It was already the coolest place in San Francisco. Part of the reason it was the coolest place in SF is because of the private room. All we needed to do was not fuck it up.”

Since the luxury busses of tech titans first rolled into town, swank, exclusionary spaces have become the new fashion in SF. The recent VIP room boom includes the much-buzzed-about members-only Battery, where select boldface names can rub elbows over fine dining and in the state-of-the-art gym; Marianne’s, the invitation-only back room with a rock ’n’ roll vibe at The Cavalier; and The Gotham Club at AT&T Park, where Giants fans can play billiards and bowl in ambient seclusion before a ball game. The draw of behind-closed-doors access is just what you’d expect: The cool kids want to mingle with a hand-picked set of equally special souls. As The Battery’s founder Michael Birch notes, “All great parties, whether in a venue or a private [space], work because the guest list is curated. Methods of curation differ, but thought goes into who will be there.”

Friedman, a California native who also co-owns The Spotted Pig in New York, scoffs a bit at the sudden saturation of newly minted restricted areas popping up around the city (“Some people get it right, and some people get it wrong”). Touché: Tosca’s inimitable hip factor is thanks to the pioneering efforts of longtime former owner Jeannette Etheredge, who spent decades personally cultivating a coterie of not just any movie stars, artists, politicians, and local characters—if you made it into Tosca’s funky back room, it was because 
Jeannette herself deemed you worthy. Tosca has long been the only space here to rival anything found in New York or London—and for most of us, its VVIP dining room is just as far away.

It might be a stretch to think that Tosca’s crossed-arm refusal of entry has led to a quest among our newly anointed arbiters of culture—techies, society offspring, and the next gen of creatives, filling shoes once worn by the previous generation’s Penns and Coppolas—to find their own top-secret digs. But while Lena Dunham and her ilk reign supreme in North Beach, the rest of us are in need of a place where we can hide/show off in semisecret…and amenities are key.

For those who find The Battery’s Ken Fulk–designed common area too, um, common, the club’s penthouse suite is the private room inside the private club, and it is a prime spot for fancy parties. (Drink one too many? Have a lounge on the Hermès bedding!) Over at The Gotham Club, meanwhile, the $2,500 initation fee (plus annual dues) offers guests a shared connection: a love of our World Series champion home team. But for some, explains club manager Ryann Greenberg, “It’s also a status symbol. AT&T Park is a very public place, and anyone can buy a ticket. Not everyone can join The Gotham Club.” For tony Giants fans, it’s their field of dreams, with a mixed group of fans and a private entrance. “Members don’t have to wait in line to see the game or get their bobblehead,” says Greenberg. “They can even watch Giants batting practice.”

At the end of the day, it’s all about an irresistible bit of swagger: that feeling that you—you!—can go where others can’t. You. Are. Special. And what is the de rigueur way to prove such preeminence? Throw a party and invite your most fabulous (and carefully selected) friends. Membership has its privileges.

WHERE TO PARTY LIKE A BALLER