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The Restaurants Of The Cosmopolitan Are Looking Tres Cosmopolitan

STK

We broken off our photo tour of the Cosmopolitan yesterday because we had a disturbing visit to the Henry that we wanted to recall, but today it’s back to business. Here’s a gallery of the restaurants waiting for your custom.

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Meanwhile, Over At CityCenter...

Yesterday was a big day in Vegas. No, not the second day of the Cosmopolitan (actually, as the first fully functioning day of the Cosmo with the shops and restaurants open, it was pretty special). But nearly!

Yesterday was the first anniversary of CityCenter. And thinking that Aria might be in need of a little love, what with everyone gravitating to the Cosmo and even Miracle Mile flashing a welcome message to the newbie on its marquee, we popped over to see what was happening.

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Our First Taste of the Cosmopolitan Is Not What We'd Hoped For

The riding crop might actually be tastier than our burger

So the plan this morning was to bring you another photogallery of the Cosmo this afternoon – this time, one of the restaurants and shops – but having had breakfast/lunch there today, we thought we’d write about that instead.

As you may have gathered, we loved the Cosmo last night. The decor is stunning, the staff have nearly all, so far, been exemplary, and we love the fact that we finally have not just one, but several, bars that we can go to and make a night of it without having to stand up/have craps players thrusting into our backs/have to resort to sign language cos of loud music/pay a cover charge.

And when we went in today, the love was still there. We parked on a lower floor, right beside the elevator, so we couldn’t get lost again. We walked in on a huge line of people queuing to get their Identity cards, and since we knew ours had already been printed out and left at concierge last night (as happened with all the party-goers), we asked at concierge whether they still had it. A lovely lady called Denise said no, they’d gone back to the Identity desk, but then without any prompting, she called the Identity supervisor on her cellphone, located our card and ran and fetched it with the words “We’re the Cosmo, we do things differently here.” Superb work, Denise. Well done.

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Brandon Flowers Cheered Up the Cosmo Pool Last Night

Yeah we're calling him B-Flo. Deal.

In the interests of impartiality, we should mention upfront that our mate Jay thought B-Flo was crap, but now we've got that out of the way we can say that he was 100 percent wrong and we really loved the Brandon Flowers gig at the Cosmo last night.

And for those of you who weren't there, and didn't camp out on the Strip to see and hear it (because you could hear it from the road, and the main marquee was screening it), we braved arm ache to film some of it for you.

First up, his short (three song, if we recall correctly) set in the Chandelier Bar at 6pm:

And then, at the pool at 11pm.

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Glitter, Art and Brandon Flowers: The Cosmo Last Night

What do you mean, the hot ladies weren't enough to get you over to the Cosmo? You want to see what the casino's actually like?

Sigh. Ok. Here's a load of photos from last night. With Brandon Flower scattered throughout like Where's Waldo.

Restaurants and shops to come later. Oh, and on second viewing, we liked it just as much as the first. We'll be taking up residence pretty soon.

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Now Presenting, The Hot Ladies of The Cosmopolitan

Here in Las Vegas, we always love a good opening (of anything) because openings means hot ladies and the grand opening of the The Cosmopolitan last night brought out some serious hotties.

Naturally, it was our duty to photograph the hired ones for you, and by hired we mean actually hired for party purposes by The Cosmo and not by leacherous, er, lecherous old men.*

We found hotties at nearly every turn, welcoming guests, offering drinks and food at the restaurants on the third floor, posing in the Molly Brown's swimsuit shop and even just adorning the Cosmopolitan signage.

Wait, we don't need to tell you all this, we just need to show you so check out our gallery of hotties below. Once again, consider it a stocking stuffer from all of us at VegasChatter. Xoxo.

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Enjoy The View, Careful Of The Terrace: Inside The Rooms At the Cosmo

A Studio Terrace Suite

More first impressions – this time, about the casino and the bedrooms. As we said before, we’ll be brief because we don’t like passing judgment on something we only saw on a walkthrough, but we’ll return to all of these points and revisit our impressions once it’s up and running.

The casino
We’re not gamblers so we’re waiting to hear from our gambling fraternity what it’s actually like. What we can tell you is that there are 1774 slot machines, 83 gaming tables and, what we rather liked, seven casino cabanas, with tassles like off a pair of curtains which sweep round and cut you off from the rest of the casino. You can book these, and you don’t even have to do bottle service.

We can also say that we thought the casino as a whole was absolutely gorgeous – from the bathrooms with entrance ways padded with red leather to the lobby area with its columns rotating digital art, to the actual art studded around the place, like a big crystal sculpture or a tiny tower of Babel-type thing in the High Limit room (incidentally, the HL slots and table games are put together in the same room here).

It’s glitzy but funky enough to stop short of flashy – and there’s a lot to look at. It’s kinda like we’d imagine a W casino – fun to walk through and hang out in.

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Where To Guzzle and Where To Swallow: First Thoughts On the Cosmo's Food and Drink Scene

The Chandelier bar. Glitzy.

OK, enough procrastinating. Here’s an overview of what we thought of our Cosmo preview. We’ll keep it brief because we don’t like passing judgment on something we only saw on a walkthrough, but we’ll return to all of these and revisit our impressions once it’s up and running. First up: the bars and restaurants. Next we’ll move on to the casino and the rooms.

The restaurants
Looks like we were right to be excited about these. We went into China Poblano, and although it won’t be open tonight – they say Friday – the decor was fantastic – a mishmash of Mexican and Chinese masks on the wall, along with bicycle tires on the roof and Frida Kahlo for good measure. Also, a weird but potentially cool bunch of tiered seats there for people getting takeout – love.

We also went into Comme Ca, which has the best views of the restos we saw – directly over the Eiffel Tower – and an incredibly well priced lunch deal, 3 courses for $28. See you there tomorrow.

Scarpetta looks fabulous, although the views are more of the Bellagio than the Strip. Finally we went up to STK and although we’re sad there are no Strip views – they blocked them off intentionally, FFS – we seriously love the idea of lady-friendly steak portions in small, medium and large, and things like crab salad instead of crab cakes. Also, there’s a fabulous private dining room – padded black leather walls, and its own sound system – which we’re seriously considering booking for our bday.

The Henry is a 24 hour restaurant and the only one on the casino floor. The vibe is kind of masculine hunters with a hint of bondage. We’re not sure about the name (more on that another time) but it could be a fun place when the munchies strike.

Finally we got a view of the secret pizza joint - it's on the restaurant floor and you go down what looks like a service passage, but what turns into a walkway lined with Italian record covers. There's a pinball machine and a small counter. Not really much room to eat in. No idea of prices, none of the staff said they knew how much it would be. Could be fun, though, especially if it stays open late.

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It May Not Fulfill Our Every Desire, But Identity Is A Pretty Great Loyalty Program

A quick note on the Identity loyalty program at the Cosmopolitan. We signed up for it last week but hadn’t got any kind of confirmation, which we thought was odd seeing as John Unwin had said in the RJ this weekend:

We'll kick it [Identity] off before we open. The mechanisms are all in place for guests to sign up on our website. We'll begin to market the program right before we open. These cards were designed to be permanent and can be used as room keys and membership cards while you're here.

Anyways, thanks to an extremely cheery member of staff yesterday, we have the details.

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The Cosmo Parking Garage May Leave You Wanting to Park At Aria

Whoop! It’s Cosmo opening day today and before Mr Flowers sings us all into a state of Cosmo adoration, we thought we’d bring you some of our thoughts. But first we thought we’d write about how we arrived for our sneak peek – and how you will probably arrive – the entrance and the parking sitch, because yesterday we found ourselves doing the unheard of and wishing we’d parked at Aria - yes, Aria, home to the Never Park Here If You Want To Hold On To Your Sanity parking garage.

First up, we called the hotel to check that the car park was up and running, and after we’d been asked whether we were coming for “processing” (oo-er) we were told to take the first exit on the right after Bellagio. Not Harmon, as we’d thought.

Um, no, after we were sent on our way “round the back way” and then turned back by security guards, we can verify it definitely was Harmon. Drive as if you’re going to Vdara and turn right at the first lights.

And here’s our first problem with the Cosmo – the entrance just isn’t very prepossessing. Driving round the side of the building feels like you’re going in the deliveries entrance and is a bit of a downer. Once you’ve turned right, it’s glammed up with that huge silver nametag and funky music and lighting, but it still feels a bit depressing to be underground (although, you’ll be pleased to hear, not as depressing as Planet Hollywood’s entrance).

The valet seems like it would be straightforward enough but the self parking was horrid. All underground which always confuses us – it’s like Palazzo, only a lot bigger. And it’s not very well signposted. We know this because when we arrived, we wandered around looking for an elevator for a couple of minutes until someone directed us to the staff elevator, which they said was the closest. So we walked past stacks of duvet covers (starched and individually wrapped in dry cleaning bags – amazing) and a room full of minibar stock and lots of boxes until we emerged in the middle of the casino.

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A Sneak Peek at the Cosmo Has Made Us Even More Excited

The countdown is nearly over

So as you may have guessed from the relentless tweets this morning, there was a sneak preview of the Cosmopolitan today, and we got a looksie.

We think you’ve probably had Cosmo overload by now today, so we’ll save our first impressions for tomorrow morning – opening day – but in the meantime, we’ll just say that we were highly impressed. We were half expecting an Emperor’s New Clothes situation but we didn’t get that vibe at all. We loved the casino and liked the rooms – and we’ll go out on a limb and say that, dollar for dollar, the wraparound suites are some of the best value rooms in Vegas.

We were under a strict no photos rule today so we’ll have to wait to bring you a gallery, but in the meantime, feast your eyes on the swanky entrance passage:

And the view from the top:

We can’t wait to see how this one turns out.

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