This has to be one of the more difficult reservations to get in Las Vegas given that it only seats 9 (with perhaps only the Omakase seating for Wakuda being more difficult with only 6 seats…challenge accepted!). I hadn’t planned far enough in advance to book a reservation, but asked to be on the wait list and managed to score a last minute reservation here due to someone’s cancellation. I had the same chance last year, but already had a reservation at Joël Robuchon then. A year ago, we had eaten at Bazaar Meat (just a la carte though) and was excited to finally dine here.
Our reservation was for 8:30pm, but were suggested to arrive 15 minutes early to meet with the somm. Due to some Saturday night traffic nightmare, it was difficult just to get an uber (long delay to confirm a driver and then had multiple cancellations by drivers), we finally had a ride which took 30 minutes to get from the MGM to the Cosmopolitan, so we arrived late for the 15 minutes before, but not too late for the 8:30 reservation. We checked in at Jaleo (é is basically a restaurant within the restaurant) and were seated at a table out in front of Jaleo where all of the other 7 fellow diners were already seated.
Two couples were sitting across from each other and were engaged in conversation. There was another couple seated across from us and a single guy sitting browsing his phone. We were greeted by one of the chefs and were given our Golden Tickets. I believe if you book in advance you receive these in advance, but they never really asked for them or anything so the purpose of these was a bit lost. We were also greeted by the somm to take our drink order. Andrea went with the Margarita Iberica and I went with The Exception, a G&T, since I had read that José Andrés was a gin fan which was why they featured G&Ts (plus, i have become a bit of a fan of G&T since my recent trips to India and London). Since we were seated late, we didn’t receive our drinks out here, but were told they would be served inside. As it would turn out, all of us were from California, although everyone else aside from me and Andrea was from SoCal.
We also made our wine pairing selections. There were 3 options, España ($150), José’s Way ($350), and Global Experience ($600). I went with España and Andrea went with José’s Way which were both focused on Spanish wines.
We were also recommended to use the restrooms before dinner since the restrooms were not in the restaurant and because of the continuous nature of the meal, you would miss some of it if you used the restroom during the meal. We already had empty bladders although a few of our fellow diners took the opportunity to use the facilities. We were soon ushered into our dining area which you enter through a glass door adjacent in the back next to the kitchen.
The room is sized to seat the 9 of us at the counter with the main stage being the are in front of us for all of the food plating. We were introduced to the team of chefs (and again to our somm); there were more of them than there were of us dining!
The first dish was a two-fer, the Branch of the Desert and the Alemendra. The branch was made of kumamoto olives (as was the soil). This was a good preview of some of the food wizardry that they would be performing this evening. Other dishes that fell into the more playful category included the Stone, Wonder Bread, Edible Sangria, Empanada, and Ferrero Rocher. The Wonder Bread is an apple meringue for the bread, and foie and truffle for the filling. I’m not really a fan of meringue, but it was certainly entertaining. The Edible Sangria was Sangria made to look a crumble and Dippin’ Dots. The Empanada ‘dough’ was made of cotton candy. And the shovel and “dirt” for the Ferrero Rocher was entertaining.
There were many rich and luxurious ingredients in the dishes including liberal amounts of foie, caviar, truffle, jamon iberico and sometimes in combination (e.g. the foie and truffle in the Wonder Bread, the caviar and jamon iberico in José’s taco, etc.).
All in all, there were 21 or so dishes served. A dish would be prepared as we watched and they would explain and as the meal went on, many of us would begin asking more questions during preparation. The dishes would be served and as you can see most were only a couple bites and as shortly after you finished a dish, the plates were cleared and the preparation for the next dish already underway. The entire meal lasted perhaps 2 hours, so it was pretty rapid, perhaps a bit too rapid since I generally like to savor and reflect upon a dish which wasn’t possible with how quickly the dishes came out. With all of the creativity on the presentation, sometimes flavor strictly speaking would take a bit of a step back. It was all quite entertaining as an experience (and I felt they pulled it off better than my experience at Alinea several months ago, but not something I’d want to do too frequently.
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