Las Vegas is a kaleidoscope, inconsistent and inconstant, always primping itself for the next starry-eyed wanderer to come along.
The last few months and years have been no exception, with a dizzying spate of restaurant, entertainment and nightspot openings. The most recent, the Mayfair Supper Club, debuted on New Year’s Eve at Bellagio Resort & Casino.
Marrying a Prohibition-era variety show with classic cuisine heavy on steaks and seafood, “Mayfair” aims high in redefining a night out in Vegas. My wife, Mica, and I took in the show just before Valentine’s Day, and over a long weekend we ate, drank and watched our way through some of the hottest recent nighttime openings along the Strip.
From a cocktail garden styled after a reality TV show to a Korean-Mexican joint featuring L.A. street food to a raucous visit to an Old West saloon, the latest temptations being dangled along the Strip invite us to invent our own versions of reality.
As chanteuse LaShonda Reese crooned from the stage of Bellagio’s new supper club, “for all we know this may be a dream … we come and go like a river.”
“We won’t say goodnight,” she promised, “until the last minute.”
A sensory blur
“Mayfair” conjures what I imagine a speakeasy must have felt like in Prohibition’s heyday. Sequined dancers float by, servers scuttle past with seafood piled high, and the band and vocalist swim against a steady tide of conversation and laughter.
The supper club took over the space formerly occupied by Hyde lounge/nightclub, with a dazzling view of the Bellagio fountains in the background.
The walls around the diners are designed to look like an aquarium, but all eyes – and ears – are drawn inward, where dancers and a band share the stage with the crooning Reese. She steadily worked her way through a repertoire from the 1950s and beyond (“In Other Words”) to the 2000s (“Crazy”).
In the meantime, we slowly and pleasurably worked our way through a seafood tower piled high with lobster, king crab legs, shrimp and oysters. Then coconut shrimp. A lobster thermidor, rich and sweet. Buttery, tender branzino.
We ended it all with a sweet cigar – a chocolate and hazelnut praline dessert that looks like the real thing, but tastes a whole lot better.
Before we knew it, four hours had passed in a sensory blur.
Successive nights found us sampling two new and notable cocktail bars and two newer restaurants.
For drinks, our new Vegas favorite emerged in the form of Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, which opened at Caesars Palace in March 2019. Based on Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules” reality TV series, this fun, irreverent bar serves wacky drinks like “The Nut Job” (pina colada meets mojito) in a setting that looks as if it were dreamed up by the Addams Family’s decorator.
Not far behind is Mama Rabbit Mezcal + Tequila Bar, which noted mezcalera Bricia Lopez opened in August 2019 in the Park MGM. The vast selection of mezcal and tequila can be sipped straight, or, as we tried it, in the subtler form of cocktails such as a “Dama Blanca” (think pisco sour) or “Salt of the Earth” (a smoky Manhattan.)
The Vegas food scene has exploded over the past decade, drawing hot chefs from around the country. Roy Choi opened Best Friend in December 2018 at Park MGM, adeptly mixing the Korean and Mexican influences that brought him fame in the Los Angeles street-food scene.
It’s completely casual, starting with the entrance styled after a Koreatown convenience store. The vibrant, spicy flavors came through on everything from slippery shrimp to kogi short rib tacos to kimchi fried rice.
Wolgang Puck’s Spago has been in Las Vegas for a quarter century, but moved to Bellagio from its longtime space in Caesars Palace’s Forum Shops in June 2018. From a patio seat overlooking the Bellagio fountains, it’s hard to beat the wood-fired prosciutto and butternut squash pizza or a housemade spaghettini so tender and buttery it almost melts on the fork.
Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club opened in an intimate, 300-seat venue at the LINQ Promenade in June 2019. We joined a packed house to take in a routine by Dusty Slay, whose roots in an Alabama trailer park have taken him all the way to the stage of the Tonight Show and Grand Ole Opry.
From selling pesticides to dissecting country-western song lyrics to lifting the contents of a hotel room, Slay started strong and kept on going.
“They had a sign in the room: Not responsible for stolen items,” he said. “So I took some stuff.”
His signature line, which he repeats throughout the show, captured how we were feeling:
“We’re having a good time.”
A saloon worth seeing
Our last night opened with a bang at Majordomo Meat & Fish, the modern steakhouse from celebrity chef David Chang. It debuted in December at Palazzo, sister property to the Venetian.
We started with a variety of dips with fluffy bing flatbread (think of naan), from a sweet cultured butter and honey concoction to savory shaved foie gras. Then scrumptious, lightly battered shishito peppers stuffed with sausage.
My wife’s grilled striped bass was delicate and flaky. Finally, a hand-cut smoked prime rib (two cuts totaling 16 ounces) accompanied by mashed potatoes and creamed spinach left me nearly speechless, begging off dessert.
Later we stopped for a mojito at the Dorsey Cocktail Bar, which opened in late 2016 at the Venetian. The bar’s library offers an oasis of calm from the usual Vegas scene.
The evening’s fireworks came courtesy of the Atomic Saloon Show, which debuted in September at the Venetian. The Spiegelworld production borrows its theme of shock-value humor and daredevil acrobatics from the long-running hit Absinthe at Caesars Palace.
“Atomic” takes raunchy to a whole new level, however, with sexual innuendo interlaced from the opening song to the closing faux fistfight. In between, expect high-flying aerials and low-brow humor, naughty nuns and a near-naked preacher, all set in an intimate Old West saloon.
It’s highly entertaining, but in a painful way that left me thinking of Sacha Baron Cohen’s misanthropic adventures in the movie “Borat.” Definitely not for the faint of heart.
As we walked out of the saloon I turned to a guy I’d never met and asked whether he liked the show.
“I loved it,“ he told me, grinning.
Wasn’t a little over the top?
“Yeah,” he said. “But that’s Vegas.”
Las Vegas: If you go
Getting there: Four airlines – Alaska, Southwest, Spirit and Sun Country – offer nonstop service between Portland and Las Vegas.
Where to stay:
- NoMad Las Vegas, set within Park MGM, is elegant and classy, with hardwood floors, vintage light fixtures and all the modern conveniences.
- Palazzo at the Venetian Resort has modern, well-appointed suites that are nearly twice as big as others on the Strip.
Where to eat, drink and be entertained:
- Mama Rabbit Mezcal + Tequila Bar is the colorful, fun brainchild of mezcalera Bricia Lopez.
- The Mayfair Supper Club is the brand-new, immersive dining and entertainment venue at Bellagio.
- Spago shows that chef Wolfgang Puck still has his magic touch.
- Best Friend is an irreverent nod to L.A.’s Korean and Mexican street food scene.
- Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club features regional and national comedy talents.
- Vanderpump Cocktail Garden showcases wild and fun drinks such as “Hanky Panky” and “The Nut Job.”
- Majordomo Meat & Fish, from celebrity chef David Chang, is simply spectacular and memorable.
- The Dorsey Cocktail Bar is worth a visit for high-end drinks and the classy library.
- The Atomic Saloon Show takes comedy to extremes – think of “Blazing Saddles” mashed up with daredevil acrobatics.
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February 23, 2020 at 01:00AM
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What’s new in Las Vegas? Dazzling nightclubs, delicious new places to eat, hilarious shows - OregonLive
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