vegas rated magazine
Features 50 An insider’s look at the inner workings of a megaclub.
56 From dusk till dawn, this is your essential guide to partying Vegas style.
66 Te ladies of Hakkasan show of their versatile looks.
PHotoGraPH BY rukes
On the cover (and on this page): Nightlife photographer Rukes captures the energy, magic and movement of Light Nightclub in Mandalay Bay.
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Departments 17 9 things we love about Vegas right now.
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Sal wise markets his way to the top; Brittany Michelle davis is ready to serve downtown some vino; andrew Cohen capitalizes on the vanity of men.
38 one of new year’s eve’s biggest draws comes in a size small. get to know Smith Center headliner Kristin Chenoweth.
40 Cake Boss Buddy V shows he’s got more up his sleeve than just sweets.
nightlife impresarios Cory McCormack and Cy waits take Miami.
The Guide 74
gifts of the edible variety.
78 Vibe dining; celebrity chefdriven pubs; fatimah Madyun takes over the kitchen at rao’s; a breakfast, lunch and dinner hangover cure.
82 Concerts, art galleries and other notable cultural outings.
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86 double the fun ... the confetti-clad nervo twins bring the house down at hakkasan.
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the best night of your life unfolds december 31; where to say auld lang Syne; Jeff Beacher returns with a big splash.
96 how to be a dJ.
Motel Sign: geoff Carter; fatiMah Madyun: JeSSe J Sutherland; Confetti: tony tran; nerVo twinS: Brenton ho/PowerS iMagery
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CrystalsAtCityCenter.com • Located next to ARIA Resort & Casino • Clothing and Accessories provided by Donna Karan • Jewelry provided by Bulgari
contributors
Jacquelynn D. Powers Writer Powers has that Vegas-Miami thing down, having commuted between the two sexy cities for fve years. That’s why it was a no-brainer for this veteran lifestyle journalist to chat up Cy Waits and Cory McCormack about their new Miami Beach nightclub Adoré (“Adoré-able,” Page 44). “I’ve partied with Cy and Cory in Vegas, and I can’t wait to dance the night away at their new spot in the 305.” Follow Powers on Twitter @JacquelynnMiami.
RUKES Photographer Drew Ressler, a.k.a. Rukes, is considered the No. 1 DJ photographer in the world (named in the “Greatest Music Photographers Right Now” poll by Complex magazine). With natural talent and a lot of practice, he’s been lucky enough to capture the biggest electronic dance music artists including Zedd, Swedish House Mafia, Avicii and Calvin Harris, plus events and festivals around the globe. For this issue, he photographed Light Nightclub for the cover. “Light,” he says, “is one of the most visually stunning venues in the world!”
KATE STOWELL Writer Born and raised in Las Vegas, Stowell loves experiencing and writing about everything her hometown has to offer. This month, she made her way over to Ghostbar Dayclub (“Party When the Sun Is Up at GBDC,” Page 65) to see what this shindig is all about. “I now realize what’s been missing from every party I’ve ever thrown or attended: a fabulous drag-queen Britney Spears impersonator, forties served in brown paper bags, costumes and an afternoon run for McDonald’s cheeseburgers.”
JESSI C. ACUÑA Associate Editor Acuña has a love-dislike relationship with her hometown of Vegas. One of her favorite aspects, though, is access to some of the best nightclubs and parties in the world. “I particularly enjoyed compiling the nightlife timeline for this issue (Page 56). I’d like to mention something about fake IDs and how I’ve painted the town red well before my 21st birthday, but I don’t want to incriminate myself or any of those places that may have let me in.”
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JEN CHASE Contributing Editor Before learning why you should eat at Buddy V’s Ristorante (“There’s No Place Like Home,” Page 40), know that Chase has the cred to talk Italian. “In 1998 I met my future husband, who as luck would have it was Italian-American. And I’m not talking a little Italian-American: mother-with-television’s-longestrunning-cooking-show Italian-American; father-with-encyclopedic-wine-seedand-garden-knowledge Italian-American. That Italian-American. I absorbed their knowledge, and in future years honed my own culinary skills and adopted their Italian ‘food is love’ mind-set.”
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THE INTERVIEW
Broadway Baby
Kristin Chenoweth comes to Vegas for a wicked good time By Danny Axelrod Visitors and locals will have the opportunity to see something truly special when celebrated Broadway star and actress Kristin Chenoweth rings in the New Year at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts. The Oklahoma-born singer, who’s best known for her role in the Broadway smash Wicked, is an accomplished opera singer and a film and television star. A 12-piece orchestra and supporting dancers and players will showcase the diminutive singer’s range in this rare Las Vegas appearance. What will the New Year’s Eve show be like? One of the challenges that I have is that I do a lot with my voice. In concert I like to give a little bit of everything, so there’ll be some opera, some musical theater, some country music and some songs from my albums. In the past few years, from touring and doing different shows, we’ve mixed things up a bit. For example, we did a show at the Hollywood Bowl with songs from movies and I sang “Que Sera Sera” and “Moon River,” so there will be those kinds of songs that people know me for. We’ve also chosen some songs that I think people will want to hear on New Year’s Eve. Why did you choose The Smith Center as opposed to a venue on the Strip? My director, Richard Alexander, was there not too long ago and shot a video of the stage. This was shortly after I had gotten the offer to play there, and I was just blown away. I’ve been told people love to sing at The Smith Center. I hear the acoustics are fantastic, and it just seemed the right venue for me. Although you haven’t done a full show in Vegas in 10 years, you have presented at the American Country Awards for the past couple of years, so you know your way around town. This year, I have been blessed to shoot a movie in L.A. with Jennifer Lopez, so unfortunately I won’t be able
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to make it to the ACAs. [In the past] I have come to Vegas for spa weekends with girlfriends, or just shopping and hanging out. I saw Barbra Streisand at Planet Hollywood. [This time] I plan on staying the night and maybe getting a massage the next day. Being so busy, you just have to take a break, even for just a day or two. A game of blackjack may be involved as well. Any interest in setting up shop with an extended engagement and residency? I look at performers like Donny and Marie, whom I admire very much and whose show I try to see while I’m in town. I could see something like that happening for me. I would love to have an act someday, where someone goes on vacation and needs someone to come in for a week or two. I would be the perfect candidate. There are things that people are born to do, and I feel I’m born to be onstage. I’m not supposed to be a homemaker or a designer; I didn’t get that gene. I’m not supposed to drive a car very fast. I can do this. So that would be lovely, if at some point I was asked to do something like that. What Las Vegas of yesteryear would you like to visit, when the Rat Pack ruled or when Elvis was the King? The Rat Pack! My first album was music from the ’30s and ’40s, and I have a love for Frank and Dean, and Tony Bennett. That was when the lyric was the star. I sang “The Best Is Yet to Come” by Cy Coleman for the Breeders’ Cup. I have that in the show as well, and I throw in some disco, too. Believe it or not, it is all interwoven in a story. You know, I don’t just sing a song for no reason. I sing songs that mean something to me, and there’s always a story behind it that I try to share with the audience. Tickets start at $49. Reynolds Hall in The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, 702.749.2000; thesmithcenter.com
Small but mighty: Kristin chenoweth brings her broadway chops to Te Smith center.
Primo (First Course) Pan after cast-iron pan fies from the kitchen flled with Nonna’s Lasagna Al Forno. It’s a dish that Buddy V’s chefs learned to make with Valastro’s army of family chefs in New Jersey, and it’s probably the one that most sends Valastro over the moon. “When you see the lasagna here, that’s Grandma’s. It’s like freakin’ Grandma’s.”
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TASTING MENU
there’s no place like home Buddy V’s authentic Italian fare rings true By Jen Chase Photography by Anthony Mair
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he food at Buddy V’s Ristorante, the maiden Italian-American eatery of renowned real-life and television baker Buddy Valastro (the “Cake Boss” of the TLC network’s franchise), is goo-ood (to be read in your best this-is-the-bomb voice). Better yet, it’s authentic— the highest praise for most chefs. To understand the magnitude of Buddy V’s to Valastro—a restaurant he opened with Vegas culinary queen Elizabeth Blau and her husband and executive chef, Kim Canteenwalla—is to know a little of his background. Every Sunday morning when he was growing up in New Jersey, Valastro knew he’d wake to the smell of his mother Mary’s “Sunday gravy” (a moniker in certain parts of the U.S. for tomato sauce richly thickened from being the cooking vessel for sausage, meatballs, brasciole and other meaty treats). And when he came home from school on weekdays, he was greeted with the scent of his father’s cooking. Each day seemed to exist only for dinnertime. Today, Valastro and his wife, Lisa, share more dinners than not with their four kids, serving them just as they were in Buddy Sr.’s house: home-cooked, the TV off and time primed for bonding. That homeyness and sense of family? You actually feel it at Buddy V’s Ristorante despite its 220 seats nestled in a corner of the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian and The Palazzo. Reminiscent of Valastro’s nonna’s New Jersey home, on the entryway’s sideboard sit real family photos and an antique lamp anyone with East Coast grannies from the same era might recognize. Even for Las Vegas, it feels like somebody’s family dining room, albeit one whipped up by New York-based Celano Design Studio. Yep, ambience helps, and it doesn’t hurt that if on this day Valastro happens to be on the foor posing for pics with any table that asks. But food matters most, and the self-professed businessman frst, baker second (a fourth-generation one, mind you) knows it. “I was always inspired by the culinary rock stars in my life, [from] my mom and my aunt, to my grandma, my dad ... everybody who’s made a difference in my life. My wife, my mother-in-law. I wanted to pay tribute to what that food was,” Valastro says. What “that food” was, was simple and delicious. Yeasty, favorful focaccia piled in baskets are handed out as many times as you want on your visit. Perfectly al dente pasta in My Dad’s Bucatini is creamy and rich. And there’s much to be eaten in between. One deviation from Italian-American tradition, and a welcome one at that, is that portions lean decidedly toward Italy and not America. Anywhere in Italy’s boot, a pound, or a box, of pasta feeds six to eight because it’s a frst course, but in America it’s typically an entrée. At Buddy V’s, you actually have a shot at fnishing what’s on your plate, a great thing for tourists who might hate not being members of the Clean Plate Club. Pricing is commensurate with portions and altogether reasonable by Strip standards. Even though there’s a ton of Italian food in this city—plates of protein as big as a baby—bigger isn’t always better, no matter whose name hangs over the door. “No disrespect to any of the [Italian] chefs here [in Vegas], because I’m not even a quarter of the chef they are and I’m the frst to admit it, but you don’t fnd that food,” he says of Buddy V’s homegrown Italian-American fare. “And the truth of the matter is, really, that’s what I am: I’m a home cook.” In The Grand Canal Shoppes, 702.607.2355; buddyvlasvegas.com
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ApEritivo Great meals start with a great beverage. or end with one. or carry on with them all meal long. If you’re a bourbon drinker, order up the nonino Manhattan. Te drink’s depth comes from the unique addition of the Italian digestivo amaro to a base of Bulleit rye, Bitter truth and a sweet li’l Luxardo cherry. Te drink’s fun comes from the spherical ice, which makes this twisted classic even more pleasurable.
AntipAsto (Appetizer) My Wife’s Eggplant parm is perhaps the most unique rif on eggplant parm ever. vegetarians, go ahead and make a meal out of this, and while you’re at it, thank Buddy v’s chefs for creatively combining two of Lisa valastro’s recipes. each plate has two modest servings comprising traditional eggplant parm— with its crispy slices baked with sauce and cheese—and a topper of roasted eggplant. Buddy questioned the move (“I was like, ‘eh ... what? Tey’re going to mess with my wife’s recipe?!’”), but was thrilled with the result. Te dish has a surprisingly chewy texture in every bite.
Secondo/contorno (Second course/Side) asking chefs what their favorite dish is is like asking them to name their favorite kid, but valastro has no qualms naming the Bone-in Parm chop (bottom right) the chosen child. With a side of broccolini and garlic bread with melted mozzarella and Fontina (and perhaps pushing the belly-busting boundary of a “proper portion”), it’s such his fave that when valastro was in town for the restaurant’s opening, he ate it four of fve nights. If veal is not your thing, the Chicken Parm (top right)is pounded thin and oven-baked with no loss of moisture. Both come with sides of spaghetti marinara.
InSalata Italian traditionalists may eat their salad last as a digestivo, but most americans kick of our meals with greens. regardless of when you order your insalata, try Buddy’s caprese even if you’ve had a version of the dish a hundred times. Te charred green beans make this one a little more hearty. and although burrata has almost become an expected alternative to traditional mozzarella now that more american cheesemakers ofer it, this one’s delicious. (ask for a little extra balsamic. It’s good.)
dolce If you actually have room for dessert, gather ye round the table with, oh, maybe 10 of your nearest and dearest, and order the Buddy’s Xl lobster tail, a traditional carlo’s Bakery treat of a faky pastry shell flled with custard cream and topped with seasonal fruit, fown all the way from New Jersey from carlo’s itself (come spring, a local outpost is opening across the hall). Fixin’ for chocolate and a mixin’ of textures? lisa’s Warm nutella cake with chocolate sauce, hazelnut praline crunch and salted caramel ice cream is a contemporary take on the ol’ chocolate cake.
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DISPATCH
AdorĂŠ-able The Strip lands in South Beach By Jacquelynn D. Powers
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adorĂŠ has all the favor of Sin city with a very distinct South Beach spice. Te crowd may be more european and Latin american, but the bottle service and big-name dJs are vegas staples.
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f you were in tune with Las Vegas nightlife entertainment gossip in late 2012, you knew something was up at Mandalay Bay in the old Rumjungle space, even if you didn’t know what. Rumor had it that a fresh venue was going to tweak the concept of clubbing. Words such as “immersive experience,” and news that Cirque du Soleil and Las Vegas-based hospitality and entertainment company The Light Group (creators and promoters of clubs at Aria, Bellagio, The Mirage and others) would be involved indicated all bets were off. The twist? Bring in music’s best DJs (mostly those playing electronic dance music); give them unparalleled sound and digital technology to do their job; and overlay it all with warm-blooded visuals, both virtual and real, that not only give clubbers something to watch, but something to inhabit ... if only for a few hours. This experience would be called Light. “There was no question whether it would be popular,” says Andy Masi, The Light Group’s CEO, and something of an entertainment life force for how he reshapes industry culture with innovative clubs. “We knew it would blow everyone away.”
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Time for Change Light opened in May 2013 amid harrumphing about the future of nightclubs. These temporary escapes into manufactured worlds designed to let you let go are at times too much and sometimes not enough. People wondered how clubs could morph into more than just a steady paycheck for multimillion-dollar DJs, places where, to rest thy weary dancing feet, one must weigh a month’s mortgage versus bottle service, or just settle for general admission. Staging a theatrically renowned acrobatics extravaganza inside a state-of-the-art nightclub seemed the ticket. “As Las Vegas became more competitive and the customer base became more experience-driven, we knew it was time to reinvent the expectation,” Masi says. Masi should know. In 2003, he and The Light Group’s Andrew Sasson developed and launched the company’s inaugural club Light at Bellagio. The original Light transformed the Las Vegas nightclub model as it was then known, and things such as European bottle service, cutting-edge lighting and creative design in an electronic atmosphere set a new standard. Masi says that with The Light Group’s longtime relationship with Cirque, the current collaboration made perfect sense. “We thought there was no better way to reinvent the nightlife scene than to bring back the club that changed Las Vegas forever.”
“Over the last fve years, the average age of Las Vegas tourists has fallen by more than fve years, and with younger tourists comes an appetite for more immersive, participative and celebratory entertainment experiences,” says Frank Helpin, creative director of Sandbox, Cirque du Soleil’s nightlife and hospitality company. “Combined with the rise of electronic dance music, the trends provided Cirque with an interesting, creative challenge.” He adds, “How can we bring the poetic worlds and amazing human performance of Cirque du Soleil to a younger crowd, in an interesting and unfamiliar setting?”
adding a human elemenT Light, which Helpin calls a “creative nightlife laboratory,” is an artistic playground where guests stand, dance and have the same good time they would at other clubs, but are stimulated by a furry of real-time artistry, at times unfolding over their heads, quite literally. At different periods throughout the night, pulleys and harnesses lower aerialists such as Alyssa McCraw just over the dance foor to do her acrobatics inches above the crowd. “It does create challenges. But it also makes it more exciting because you’re part of [the show],” says McCraw, 29, who was a 16-year freelance performer in and
around Las Vegas before joining Light this year. “You’re so close, you’re able to hang down, and people are reaching for you. ... It’s defnitely more of a personal connection than a stage show, where you’re always going to be removed. For me, I love that kind of [interaction].” In addition to aerialists, a second layer of performers toys with guests. Five to 20 “characters,” including Candy Girl, Bubble Girl, Crystal Lady, Flaming Lady, Lizard Girl and the Sumo, dress in costumes to refect the night’s show theme—while “animating” with patrons in the entrance line from 10-11 p.m., all to get the party started earlier (and pass the time) with a little more fun. “Our ‘room,’ as I call it, is special,” says Adrian Riggs Young, Light’s stage manager who orchestrates the club’s 40-some cast members and seamlessly fts their performance cues into the nightclub’s general operations. “The club-lighting package, the video/LED wall, great DJs—add Cirque on top of that—no other place in the world has all these elements to create such an incredible experience for all your senses.” The man responsible for these experiences? Hassan El Hajjami, Light’s artistic director and choreographer. A four-year veteran of The Beatles Love—where from 2005-09 he actually was the Walrus—the France-born El Hajjami has been an
artistic director for Cirque’s special events for the last three years. Now he’s charged with creating Light’s “tableaus”—the visual, choreographed acrobatic and dance ensembles that all sync to create the acts that take place throughout the night. “It’s not like Studio 54 where we just put out an act and that’s it,” El Hajjami says. He actually develops a storyline in which he winds in characters and aerialists as they dance, swing, hang or tumble high above the crowd, creating an atmosphere in which the crowd feels immersed. For each tableau, El Hajjami collaborates with digital content company Moment Factory, which complements his work with interactive images projected throughout the club. (Moment Factory has famously worked on Super Bowl halftime shows with acts such as Madonna, Black Eyed Peas and Beyoncé. Thanks to its innovation, you won’t have the same visual experience at Light two nights in a row.) “In the end, when you see the storyline and you have the character content, costumes, the DJ—when everything comes together and the crowd stops and just watches—it is super-cool,” El Hajjami says. “For me, for this place, I have one word: ‘Beyond,’” says Marie Grujicic-Delage, 29, a character in the show and former backstage coordinator and consultant for Cirque’s special events from 201013 and El Hajjami’s creative assistant. “I do not
know how a human being cannot be touched by an amazing performance like this.”
More Than JusT a Club Reinvent a club into whatever you want, but it still needs to sound good. Renowned lighting and sound designer John Lyons of John Lyons Systems is part of the team responsible for what you see and hear. With nightclubs under his belt on both coasts, many of which he built for and with The Light Group including the original Light, Lyons calls this latest iteration something different. “While [Light] certainly has a good amount of talent that comes through this place, we wanted to build something that spoke to the large majority of people who go to a nightclub and are kind of forgotten,” he says. “They’re not the people who are buying bottles and spraying Champagne; they’re the people who just go there and want to be entertained. The thing about Light that makes it so successful is that as a patron, if you’re not one of those professional nightclubbers, you can still go with a group of friends and have an amazing time and be completely blown away regardless of who’s playing. “If you think about it,” he adds, “it’s like taking Broadway, the circus and a boy-meets-girl [storyline]. You put those things together and you have a really potent cocktail of stimuli.”
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Brotherly Love
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Growing up in Portland, Maine, brothers Angelo and Gino DiPietro didn’t expect their paths to lead to Sin City, but after his college roommate moved to Vegas to play professional poker, Angelo followed and began working for the original Light nightclub. Three years later, Gino landed work at Jet nightclub in The Mirage after his own graduation. The two moved up the ladder with Angelo, 30, now managing and training the Light Group’s nightclub hosts while Gino, 27, serves as director of customer development at Aria’s Haze nightclub. The brothers, who often fnish each other’s sentences, work, play and, up until a few months ago, lived together. For revelers planning a night out on the town, Angelo suggests looking out for which club is throwing an industry-night party while Gino recommends using a host to streamline the experience. “Make sure you have someone looking after you, because you’re going to get lost in the shuffe of all the things going on out here,” he says. “You need to have someone handle business for you.” lightgroup.com –Erin TiMrAwi
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The Hosts With the Most
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While there are great hosts all over Las Vegas, top to bottom it doesn’t get better than the elite crew at Marquee in The Cosmopolitan. We’re looking at you, Justen Crews, Larson Legris, Derrick Runtas (pictured from left to right) and the entire host team. From their “offce” at the velvet ropes, they reliably answer texts, happily accommodate large groups, escort you through the entrance, write up your table slip and have you on your way to the party in relatively short order. Moreover, the stylish and sociable team flls Marquee nightly with beautiful people and big spenders, helping make it one of the top nightclubs anywhere. In The Cosmopolitan, 702.333.9000; marqueelasvegas.com –saM gLaseR PHOTOGRAPH BY AnTHOnY mAiR vRATed.cOm
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Hottest Performers
Whether it’s dazzling bottle fairies (who are actually trained aerialists) futtering overhead to deliver bottles, models dispersed throughout the venue (you simply can’t miss the bathing beauties in fower-flled tubs wearing nothing but petals) or glass cage-encased hotties welcoming guests, Tao understands how gorgeous women affect atmosphere. But it’s the ever-changing, thematically costumed go-go dancers (see sexy pilots and fight attendants for the “Vice Airwaves” set) who really steal the show at the club. In the Grand Canal Shoppes, 702.388.8588; taolasvegas.com –sAm glAser
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Te ladies of Hakkasan: Mandi Olson, Danielle Davidson and Micah Atienza.
VEGAS FLAVOR Say cheers to the holidays with edible and elegant gifts
Bottoms Up VANISHING POINT chardonnay, $39 a bottle; vanishingpointwinery.com; by the glass at Morels in Te Palazzo. HENNESSY V.S LIMITED EDITION BOTTLE BY OS GEMEOS, $40; hennessy.com. VSG ILLUSION cigar, $20; Double Helix in Town Square. HARD ROCK HOTEL fask, $13.95; Fuel in Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. MICHAEL ARAM Gotham wine coaster stopper set, ice bucket and ice scoop, $89, $295 and $59; J. Glenn in Boca Park.
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Shot on location at culinary dropout in Hard Rock Hotel & casino
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Photography by Anthony mair