The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a luxury resort and casino aimed at a younger, hipper clientele, has reinvented the social club with its new quirkily-named venue Rose. Rabbit. Lie. Part cocktail lounge, part supper club and part cabaret, it’s a bit risqué in the best Vegas tradition, and extremely entertaining as well as being a mecca for mixologists.
While much of Vegas’ nightlife feels formulaic in the extreme—bottle service, blasting DJs and breast augmentation all around—with a rather forced bonhomie, Rose. Rabbit. Lie. is pure theater and genuinely enjoyable. A collaboration between Coastal Luxury Management, curating food and beverage, and entertainment juggernaut Spiegelworld, it’s a little Alice in Wonderland meets The Great Gatsby, and it’s impossible not to have fun.
There are three nightly showings or “cantos” of the venue’s signature entertainment, dubbed Vegas Nocturne, but improvisational bits of dance, music, theater and cabaret can pop up in any part of the sprawling space at any time. And speaking of time, it’s pretty easy to lose track of it in Rose. Rabbit. Lie., which is rather refreshing. Just as the venue’s cocktails like the Monkey Gland and the Mark Twain are so painstakingly crafted from a variety of artisanal ingredients into a perfectly satisfying concoction, so Vegas Nocturne is an assemblage of carefully curated performers and personalities. An enthusiastically louche MC introduces acts ranging from magic to tap dancing, acrobatics to archery, none of it remotely what you’d expect, and all obviously constantly evolving.
The three cantos get progressively more (playfully) X-rated as the evening proceeds, but it would be spoiling the surprise to offer any more details. In addition to the cocktail lounge and the ballroom where it takes place, there’s a full-blown restaurant in a room called The Library, which features a triptych tribute to Hieronymus Bosch's artistic insanity The Garden of Earthly Delights. Chef Wes Holton’s menu focuses on small plates meant to be shared, and draws on classic dishes like Oysters Rockefeller and Beef Wellington with a dash of eccentricity, as the setting demands. And if you feel like having a $2,000 bottle of wine with it, no problem; this is Vegas after all.
