Michael Bao Huynh has signed on to join Miami clubman Eric Milon as a partner at his swanky Covet in a spot club people are not exactly flocking to. Milon seems to think a Vietnamese-French theme from Bao will be a bigger draw than Bruno Jamais’s former chef doing Mediterranean in the same space with cocktails from $18 to $24, including the Icarus House Essence Flambé with Premium saffron on hand chiseled ice at $160.

        The chef, busy reopening Bia Garden as Chinito -- as a Cuban Veitnamese fusion spot -- possibly December 2nd, thinks Covet will need some rehab and menu planning. "But we will definitely be open for New Year's Eve." He'll also cooks on request for customers in the basement lounge. "They get a lot of celebrities," he said.

        Milon has been seeking his niche in Manhattan since planting a seedling of his Miami club Mansion into Crobar in 2008 before that venue got shuttered. Milon and partner Andre Hnatyszak opened Covet in April.

        This latest move by the ambitious and peripetatic Huynh brings him into competition with David Chang’s Vietnamese fusion not far away at Ma Peche. I last saw Huynh cheering his Mexican chef at Baoritta in a teeny carryout space on 2nd Avenue, cocky and confident despite a few closings in his empire of pint-size eateries. There’s talk he may also get involved with Milon in Miami.

        Is the Covet space cursed? Once the private club Azza and later Fizz, a veteran club owner describes the two story space on 55th and Lexington as “deadly.” Huynh was a partner at BarBao on the Upper West Side, too, and it faltered, finally closing, after he lost focus expanding his personal empire elsewhere.

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