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Photo courtesy of Nobu Caesar’s Palace.
Does the Nobu restaurant empire’s first step into hotels cut the mustard (or wasabi)?
The welcome
Prepare for disorientation. The first Nobu hotel is more a renovated, cordoned off and rebranded tower inside the gigantic Caesar’s Palace complex. Guests have to navigate the maze to find the small entrance lobby. If others are checking in or out, it becomes quite a squeeze – although the walls lined with randomly shaped and patterned wooden blocks look incredibly cool. On arrival, the receptionist told us no rooms were ready – a seemingly automatic response – although one miraculously materialised when she actually checked the computer.
The neighbourhood
The Nobu is on the most eye-popping, stark raving insane street in the world. Las Vegas Boulevard – universally known as The Strip – is lined by most of the world’s largest hotels, and is a visual blizzard of outright chutzpah. Walk in one direction and you’ll find the dancing fountains of the Bellagio and a pastiche Eiffel Tower. In the other, you’ve fake volcano explosions at the Mirage and gondolas floating around the canals at the Venetian. Laid back and subtle it is not, uniquely extraordinary it certainly is.
The room
A choice of black or white robes, little red tassles that double as Do Not Disturb signs, gorgeous bathrooms with large shimmery-tiled marble showers – lots of elegant little ideas have gone into a coherent, mildly Japanese-tinged design. The rooms are agreeably spacious too – 32.5 square metres is the standard size. Dark woods create a mellowing, chocolatey richness.
The scene
There’s a sense of sanctuary, somewhere for those who want to temporarily levitate above the madness of the Strip rather than throw themselves headlong into it. The Caesar’s Palace facilities – including the gigantic faux-Roman pool complex – are open to Nobu guests should they wish to join in, however.
By Vegas standards (many resorts have thousands of rooms), this is an intimate, 181-room effort aimed at the more discerning visitor. But it’s a retreat with a cool cachet to it. One of the world’s most famous chefs, Nobu Matsuhisa, and Robert De Niro are the key investors – it was never going to be dowdy.
The service
A welcome tea and bowl of exotic fruits (some so exotic that we haven’t a clue what they are) arrive shortly after arrival; a lavender mist spray is left by the bed at turndown. Nice touches, but cancelled out by maids knocking before 10am to clean the room. And when your surname is needed to log on to the internet, it’s kinda helpful if staff spell it correctly. Sadly, the hotel’s not as thoughtful and personalised as it may pretend or aspire to be.
The food
A Nobu-backed hotel was always going to appeal to the stomach as much as the sleepy head, and sure enough the attached restaurant is world class. Nobu’s trademark inventive, Peruvian-tinged Japanese menu is hit after hit – with the $36 beef tenderloin toban yaki and $34 (Dh125) black cod miso being particularly stellar. And the key, stand-out selling point? You can have it as room service.
Loved
A prodigiously comfortable bed that makes an excellent case for never leaving it, with off-the-charts thread counts in the sheets.
Hated
The non-negotiable US$25 resort fee is added to the bill, whether you use the facilities it supposedly covers (gym, Wifi for one device, local phone calls) or not. Sadly, it’s a scam that pretty much every Vegas hotel indulges in.
The verdict
It feels and looks fabulous, and there’s a strong temptation to order room service three times a day, but the opportunity for a genuinely guest-focused hotel in a city that does personal appallingly has been missed.
The bottom line
Deluxe king rooms cost from $228.48, including tax, room only. 3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas (www.nobucaesarspalace.com, 00 1 702 785 6677).
This story was originally published in The National. The author was a guest of Nobu Caesar’s Palace.
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