week after watching Blair Waldorf eat tuna truffle sandwiches at Geisha on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Sara Karp went to the restaurant to find her favorite “Gossip Girl” character’s seat.

“I’m obsessed,” said Karp, a 26-year-old interior designer who lives in the neighborhood. “I’ve been to most places the show has been filmed at.”

“Gossip Girl,” the CW network teen drama that began its second season this week, is the current buzz of television, luring fans to the New York venues frequented by its wealthy high school characters. Restaurants are offering menu items featured in the show, and blogs report cast sightings. BlackBook, an urban lifestyle magazine, posted a “Gossip Girl” tour of the city on its Web site last month. “It’s such a strong advertising vehicle for us because people are so into that show, so engaged,” said Andy Donchin, director of national broadcast for New York media buyer Carat USA. Donchin’s clients, including Papa John’s International Inc. and Alberto-Culver Co., have bought time on the show to market pizza and Tresemme shampoo.

The $25 tuna truffle sandwich ordered at Geisha by character Waldorf and her ex-boyfriend Nate Archibald has become one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes, said spokeswoman Katie Roose.

“Everyone asked, `Where did they sit?”’ Roose said. “Geisha brings in a very socialite, Upper East Side, New York crowd. It’s perfect for the show.”

Grilled Cheese

Gilt, a bar in the New York Palace Hotel, says its best seller is the truffled grilled cheese sandwich that hotel heir Chuck Bass fed to inebriated schoolmate Serena van der Woodsen before trying to have sex with her. The sandwich sells for $50.

“We have men in their 50s asking for the grilled cheese sandwich and asking where Blair and Serena sat,” said Pete Holmberg, a spokesman for the Palace, which was featured as the home of the van der Woodsens in the first season. “The youngest I’ve seen is an 8-year-old girl coming in to see Gilt because of the show.”

CW, jointly owned by CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros., based “Gossip Girl” on a series of books from Cecily von Ziegesar. The title character is a mystery blogger who narrates vignettes of romance, spats and scandals, and signs off: “You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl.”

`New Yorkiest Show’

New York magazine in April dubbed the program the “New Yorkiest television show since `Sex and the City,”’ the HBO series that ran from 1998 to 2004. The magazine cited its raciness, melodramatic plot and portrayal of Manhattan privilege.

“Gossip Girl’s” local following hasn’t translated into ratings success. Its Wednesday airings in the season from last September through August averaged 2.19 million viewers. Monday broadcasts, after CW switched the time slot mid-season, lured an audience of 1.47 million, according to Nielsen Co.

The ratings put the show below other CW sitcoms such as “Smallville” and “One Tree Hill.” TV’s most-watched show last season, Fox’s Tuesday “American Idol,” drew about 27.7 million viewers per episode on average.

“Gossip Girl” was renewed because it “hits a bulls-eye with our target demographic of females 18 to 34,” said Paul Hewitt, a CW spokesman. Comparisons to the total viewership of “American Idol” are irrelevant, he said.

`Rabid Following’

The season premiere on Sept. 1 drew 3.4 million viewers, the second-highest total after the premiere episode a year ago.

The show has a “rabid following” across different media, including cwtv.com, Hewitt said. The episodes have been among the most-downloaded on Apple Inc.’s iTunes service, said Tom Neumayr, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple.

Filmed in Silvercup Studios in Queens, the show also featured the teenagers hanging out at the restaurant Butter in the downtown neighborhood of Nolita last season. The Box on the Lower East Side was depicted as Victrola, the burlesque club that Bass convinced his tycoon father was a worthwhile investment.

Karp, a native New Yorker who attended Horace Mann, a private school in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale, before going to Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, New York, says the show reminds her of her school days, as well as her Manhattan life. She says she recognizes the tiniest details, including the cups from Sant Ambroeus, where she gets her coffee every morning on Madison Avenue.

“It’s actually really realistic,” said Karp. “I love that it’s filmed in New York. Most of the places, you’ve been to. Or if you haven’t been, you can check them out after the show.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Gillian Wee in New York at gwee3@bloomberg.net.

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