A Highly Opinionated Guide to Las Vegas' Best Restaurants and Bars

If you think you’re not a Vegas person, think again. A true believer shares three food and drink itineraries for high rollers, the down-and-dirty, and lovers of the classics.

I am my worst self at Christmas.

The requisite holly, jolly, and bright requires cheerful participation to fuel it, and in the cold and dark of the year, I have nothing to give. The holiday season is an itchy, suffocating sweater that has been yanked down over my soul. I grin for the pictures and pantomime the merry as others demand, but I cannot breathe until it has been wrested off.

I am my best self in Las Vegas. It wants nothing from me but my money, and I appreciate the honesty of that relationship. By all reasoning, this electrified pirate’s chest should not exist in the middle of a desert, yet there it is, stocked with every earthly pleasure—and, for me, respite.

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There are few holidays so campy and glitzy as Christmas, and this is where Las Vegas shines. There, Santa pours eggnog into a toilet-shaped mug at a 24-hour dive bar, a waitress in a thigh-slit cocktail dress artfully dips into a banquette to deliver a round of marshmallow-decked chocolate martinis, a glossy cart is laden with enough jewellike petits fours to delight all the denizens of Whoville, zip-lining revelers soar under a canopy of lights like so many Rudolphs, and the flames of a cherries jubilee toast the soul as warmly as a Yule log. The naughty and the nice blur into a single list in the course of an evening, and my presence is present enough.

If I have the wherewithal, I time my flight to land around dusk so the string of Strip lights blinks awake as the plane descends—my blood pressure along with it. I will not be on the hook to untangle, cook, decorate, entertain, smile; there are tens of thousands of professionally hospitable humans tasked with silently crafting this spectacle (God bless and tip them well), and I am simply there to behold, take what I wish from the buffet, and explore the grimy to the grand, depending on my mood.

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You might claim that you’re just not a Vegas person. You’re wrong. There is a Las Vegas for every soul, especially in this season, and definitely if you give a damn about truly innovative and delicious cocktails and food.

Itinerary #1

The High Rollers Come Marching In

Should this year’s stocking be stuffed with cash, I’ll plan a ski vacation down the veritable mountain of Beurre Bordier on the bread cart at Joël Robuchon and schuss to a stop on the sweets trolley. The dining room is a velvet-walled, purse-stool-studded ornament box in which your particular wants are the glittering jewel, and while it’d be easy to assume an icy brand of service, the warmth comes as a welcome shock. An exceptionally perceptive server once caught me—a solo female diner who’d selected the least-expensive tasting menu—frozen in front of the loaves, and he unstuck me by saying, “Please don’t be shy. They work so hard on this bread, and you should have as much as you want.” It felt like a gift. I ate so much butter.

If I’m in the mood to roll like the Rat Pack, the Golden Steer Steakhouse has been roping ’em in (and by ’em, I mean regulars like Frank, Sammy, and Dino) off the Strip since 1958. Some servers have been tossing tableside Caesars and setting bananas Foster ablaze (see those leaping flames above) for more than 30 years, and they topped my 40th-birthday cheesecake with a Roman candle that sent a rocket of sparks halfway to the ceiling, burning the raucous delight into my soul forever. But if I’m angling for a more subtle swank, I’ll make merry at the regency-glam Sinatra, sipping a cocktail under the gaze of Ol’ Blue Eyes. In my non-Vegas life, I rarely care to drink a martini, but there, should the Fates allow, I’ll give the bartender a nod for a second round.

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Oh wait, my ride is here—a stretch limo in the form of a pound of fresh mozzarella pulled tableside at Superfrico, a restaurant self-billed as “Italian American Psychedelic,” where you can abandon all responsibility, gesture toward the “Trust Chef” section of the menu, and let luxe rain down upon you as you make snow angels in the candy-colored sideshow, tripping bocconcini at the excess of it all.

Itinerary #2

Have Yourself an Old-School Christmas

The Magi had their star, and for the past 50 years the rest of us have been beckoned to the Peppermill’s Fireside Lounge, where a flame dances merrily in the center of a bubbling pool flanked by plush banquettes, and cocktail waitresses deliver fishbowl-size drinks with garnishes that could double as a meal if your appetite hadn’t already been felled by the Brobdingnagian fruit platter, or the Southern fried steak drowned in a sausage gravy so gloriously rich it’d put even the most fidgety kid (or me) into a deep slumber straight on through Christmas afternoon.

Doesn’t matter when you wake up because the self-dubbed “happiest place on Earth,” the 24/ 7 Double Down Saloon, will be slinging bacon martinis and toilet-bowl-shaped shot glasses of Ass Nog, a cheeky seasonal tweak on the bar’s signature Ass Juice ($4 for a shot or $9 for two; do your math before you start drinking). The windowless walls are plastered with colorful murals and stickers for the punk and hardcore bands who play free shows in front of a sign saying “Shut up and drink.” Maybe not the silent night everyone seeks, but it works for me.

A holiday reveler might luxuriate in the throwback glam of The Mayfair Supper Club’s luxe steakhouse menu, but after dark, the joint transforms into a bawdy burlesque-meets-disco-dive extravaganza complete with aerial silk acts, scantily clad dancers jingling their everything, and plenty more orchestrated mayhem set against the spectacle of Bellagio’s legendary fountain show in the background. Come for the shrimp cocktail and tomahawk steak; stay for the sequins, beats, and the brand of bacchanalia only Las Vegas can deliver.

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Itinerary #3

All I Want For Christmas Is Food

A white Christmas is perfectly nice, but I’d rather fall face-first into a snowy drift of foam atop a seasonally tweaked take on China Poblano’s cult-classic Salt Air Margarita, paired with José Andrés’ Viva China taco (crispy beef tendon, Szechuan soy sauce, raw oyster, green onions), which is my single favorite bite of food on this planet. If you’ve been extra good, perhaps you can celebrate a silent night with a Silencio duck-tongue taco that seems to wade on and off the menu. (The star atop the tree is some of the best people watching in town in the form of the line at Marquee Nightclub just across the hall.)

Guide your sleigh downtown to Esther’s Kitchen and rest your head on a pillow of impossibly fluffy sourdough; you can get it with ’nduja; with blue cheese, walnut, and ricotta; and with an anchovy butter with which I dream of filling a kiddie pool. I’d joyfully while away Christmas Eve with the Roman-style pastas that haunt my dreams, past, present, and future.

Back on the Strip, The Buffet at Bellagio is the gift that keeps on giving, both at brunch and at dinner. I smile beatifically as I watch the rookies opt for the mashed potatoes and bread; shorter lines for me as I heap my plate with crab, smoked fish, caviar-topped blintzes, shrimp, a made-to-order omelet, slices of a rosy and marbled roast carved by a toque-topped chef, and later, all the fresh pastries, crêpes, and gelato I can gobble between sips of unlimited Prosecco or Bloody Marys.

Depending on the hour, I may trip tipsily through the Bellagio conservatory, marveling at the annually changing extravaganza that may include a story-high tree, a family of polar bears rendered in flowers, or human-size snow globe, or I may opt for a little more of the holiday spirit at Merry Crimson, a seasonal pop-up bar that embraces ugly-sweater cheer in the form of candy swizzles, cookie shot glasses, and a holiday Mule topped by sugar-dusted cranberries, all aglitter under the igloo lights and cozy firepits, complete with s’mores.