Coming to Vegas: Nobu Expands Brand With First Hotel

For decades, new Las Vegas hotel/casinos have been incredibly over-the-top and, let's face it, garish: a pyramid, a pirate-themed one, a mini re-creation of New York City, King Arthur’s castle, the list goes on. But now a casino is heading in the opposite direction by leveraging the Nobu brand to attract a new clientele.

Nobu Hospitality partners including Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, Robert De Niro and Meir Teper, along with designer David Rockwell and principals from Caesars Palace, held a press conference this week at the original Nobu in New York City to reveal the concept for the world's first Nobu Hotel, set to open in Las Vegas late 2012.

The design for the Nobu Hotel at Caesars Palace looks to bring the zen palate of Nobu restaurants to life — an oasis for well-heeled high-rollers to calm their nerves and enjoy the good life after making (or losing) more cash at the city’s many gambling tables.

The plan is to “greet guests with wood tiled surfaces, sleek technology, and Japanese-inspired carpets and wall coverings that includes elements of cherry blossoms and Japanese Zen gardens,” according to the Boston Globe.

In other words, not your normal Vegas hotel. The place will have 118 rooms, with 18 of those being suites that will each “be set in neutral colors with hints of purple and aqua, and feature special calligraphy drawings and Japanese seascapes,” the Globe notes. If that’s not enough calming for you, head into the bathrooms where there will be “rich teak fittings, stone tiles, oversized walk-in showers, and a teak bathing stool, a commodity seen in traditional Japanese bathhouses.”

As an added bonus, there is 24-hour room service provided by chef Nobu Matsuhisa, whose Japanese/South American fusion has been satisfying big-dollar consumers in high-end locations for years. It’s that cuisine that has brought in such investors as Robert DeNiro and Meir Teper over the years.

The partnership adds some gloss to he 45-year-old, 3,960-room Caesars Palace, which will be looking to make some more cash from the hotel, which will begin taking bookings October 1st at NobuHotelCaesarsPalace.com. They may want guests to relax their bodies, but don’t expect them to ask consumers to relax their wallets.