In a hip but exquisitely and spotlessly mellow setting, all cocoa-and-turquoise carpeting and vertical sheets of sheer shimmering agate, a dozen buffet stations span the globe, their offerings served by white-coated chefs or set out small-plate style. Mussel-clam risotto crowned with whipped ricotta. Glorious ham-hock mac-and-cheese. Greek loukaniko sausages with roasted black grapes. Tender gnocchi with life-changing lamb-tomato ragú. Macadamia pizza. Currant pilaf. Grilled quail in a pomegranate glaze. Nut tarts aglitter with gold leaf.
This is the food of fantasy, the sort of fare you'd expect to be served in a fairytale palace, in your loving grandmother's kitchen, and at elite urban hotspots where no one mentions the price. It's not the sort of fare you'd expect to serve yourself at a buffet restaurant, much less a buffet restaurant in the Nevada desert: Custom-rolled sushi. House-baked rolls in exotic shapes, to be spread with fresh butter or house-made jams. Artisanal desserts, from wild-raspberry fudge to mango-gelato pushups to pineapple-pignole tart to actual silvered eggshells filled with mock eggs made of mango and coconut cream.
At a staggering cost of $3.9 billion, the Cosmopolitan casino resort opened on Las Vegas' Strip two weeks ago, and its Wicked Spoon buffet redefines the very notion of buffets.
Everything everywhere is being redefined these days. The grim economy gives us no choice. In Las Vegas, a city that is literally fueled by get-rich-quick fantasies, redefinition is now in overdrive. In an environment whose raison d'etre is the tossing away of money in hopes of winning more back, how to soothe the fear and panic now girding the slender wallets of America?
By enlarging the experience. Casinos are getting bigger and grander, outdoing themselves in splendor. The fifty-story, 2,995-unit Cosmopolitan features bespoke room decor including Japanese soaking tubs and one-of-a-kind private terraces. It features a dozen restaurants and a multilevel cocktail bar designed to look and feel like the inside of a gigantic chandelier. It also sports a 100,000-square foot casino -- and that's the whole point, according to industrial psychologist and poker coach Alan Schoonmaker, author of The Psychology of Poker and other books.
"The simple fact of the matter is that people fundamentally have a desire to take chances," Schoonmaker tells me. "They overestimate the probability of winning, and they don't want to believe otherwise.
"Casinos are oriented toward creating fantasies. Las Vegas" -- where Schoonmaker lives -- "is one great big fantasy. Its fake New York, fake Paris, fake Egypt, and all that glamor is designed to make you forget reality" so that you'll gamble more.
"Take a look at casino architecture and you'll find very few straight lines. You won't see any clocks and you'll see few if any windows, because the designers don't want you to know where you are or what time it is. The name of the game is: Feed the fantasy and help people forget reality. And the reality is that you must lose.
"If you get extraordinarily lucky, you can win a million dollars, but the odds against that are very high," Schoonmaker says. "If you win a million, Las Vegas loves you -- we put your picture on television and on billboards and we say, 'Harry Jones won a million dollars after gambling just 25 cents.' We're happy when a few people win, because their wins bring in thousands of suckers who lose. These wins are just part of the fantasy, because people think: Hey, it happened to him. It could happen to me. I too could leave the ugly world of mundane reality. I too could tell my boss goodbye."
Even among those who aren't gambling addicts, desperation begets deeper and deeper risk.
"The dumbest words in gambling are 'I've got to get even,'" Schoonmaker warns.
A savvier mindset is to visit Las Vegas without wagering a cent on games of chance.
"Las Vegas is a very cheap town if you don't gamble," Schoonmaker says. "If you come here for a vacation and don't gamble, you're beating us at our own game."
In which case, the Wicked Spoon's risotto and salted-caramel gelato are winning bets.
