STARS SEEK OUT COMPANY AS NICKY AND NICK GET READY TO OPEN NEW NIGHTSPOT
Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria and actor William Shatner were the first two celebrities to grab a sneak peek and a taste-testing of the unique menu of one of the most eagerly awaited new restaurants in our ever-growing dining scene.
Company will celebrate its official grand opening next Friday (Nov 30) with celebrity investors Nicky Hilton, Nick Lachey and Wilmer Valderrama on hand for the festivities. Eva was enthusiastic about the new in-spot.
“It’s beautiful and I’ll make it my regular hangout whenever I come in and out of Vegas—and that’s pretty often these days.”
When she was getting her hair-done first at color-king Michael Boychuck’s salon at Caesars Palace she dished to stylist Dawn Oguri that since she was “unemployed because of the writers strike, was the salon hiring?” Eva, who married NBA superstar Tony Parker this summer in Paris, also revealed that she had never planned on getting married again until he popped the question!
Luxor president Felix Rappaport took Star Trek’s Captain Kirk for an out of this world experience at the chic eatery. The team of chefs led by brilliant Adam Sobel served him their twist on a “Classic Caesar” and the Company “select” caviar.
I chatted with the young chef when PURE management group head honcho Robert Frey invited me there for an advance look, and Luxe Life has the first photos!
Adam told me: “We are taking classic American dishes and putting our twist on it. So we have classics and then we have soon-to-be classics. The whole idea behind this restaurant is to give our guests something familiar, but then put a Nuevo twist on it. I am using farm fresh seasonal produce, the highest quality, and then the Nuevo twist: The menu will change with every season. It will change daily, if necessary, with availability of the produce. We are food shopping all over the world. We try to stay indigenous to the US because it is an American bistro and we like to support our artisan and local producers that do a great job for us, but obviously things come from all over; there will be Turbot, Dover Sole, there will be truffles on the menu when it is black truffle season, and caviar all the time! One of our new twists is an Alaskan king crab in its edible shell. Typically you get king crab and it is served with lemon, cocktail sauce and such, but we are taking the legs and encasing them in a couchant which is seasoned with a shellfish reduction and placed over the crab leg and it melts as if it is a shell and the guest bites into it. You can actually hear the crunch! We have shaved jicima and green apple in a cucumber gelee, so that is funky and totally not expected. We also have a steak tartar and all of its ingredients, but we play it in a fashion that’s different: in a very flat square. We have all the garnishes that go into normal steak tartar going on top of it, and serve it with homemade onion crackers. I guarantee it’s the best you’ve ever tasted. Our food and the sleek chic restaurant are a great marriage, it is a warm dining scene and the food is playful and will ignite conversation and we encourage sharing it.”
Adam, just 27, has teamed with his former Bradley Ogden chef sidekicks David Varley, 26 and Ralph Perrazzo, 28, as the triple threat chef contingent.
Adam, who also worked previously at Caesars Palace with Super-chef Guy Savoy, brings some pretty heavyweight credentials to the new kitchen, which is totally the opposite of their more structured formal meals.
“There are some similarities in the way of food products, handling, treatment and in preparation it’s the same if not better. We have some great cooks here but the dining scene here is a better fit for me,” he told me. “My time spent at Bradley’s and with Guy is something I would never trade. Without the training in those restaurants I would not be here today. I pay homage. This is a more relaxed, younger, hipper crowd and more what I am about. It is not stuffy. This is a restaurant where you can come and eat seven nights a week. It is not just the feel of an Aspen ski-lodge which was the original plan. There is warmth here that is soothing with stone and wood and silver fir trees. It fits the idea of a mountain house, but the original concept has become a little different. One of my original food concepts was to let the customer order whatever he wanted rather than the menu dictating the exact meal, but our space became limited in the kitchen so it wasn’t quite possible to be totally unique. But there’s still incredible creativity in the menu and they can make their own choices of sides and sauces. All appetizers are customer composed, except for a few things that we leave untouched like the caviar and the shellfish. We also have some secret items that you need to have a password to order.”
I did discover the Bacon and Eggs on Brioche, the matzo ball soup and Chinese BBQ pork pancake when I poked through the eclectic and exciting menu.
Obviously for Luxe Life readers I immediately asked for the password and wondered if it was the same magic key to enter the inner sanctum of the highly exclusive and privileged Noir Bar at the LAX nightclub next door.
Laughed Adam: “We want to build a mystery, so I have to swear you to absolute secrecy, and we won’t let you know it until we’ve had the celebrity opening! But this is the only restaurant in the world where you need a password to be able to order certain special items. We have secret bar items and secret sandwiches and you can’t get the fois gras until you whisper the password.”
I asked him if he was star-struck and if there was additional pressure working for the three celebrity partners. He told me: “I respect what they bring to the table with their celebrity status and they respect what we do as far as food and trying to create a restaurant. We’ve become a great team.”
The 10,000 square foot space has a fireside lounge surrounded by Aspen trees and hurricane lamps with candles. A state of the art wine wall and silver-leafed chandeliers with antlers highlights the main dining room with its custom-made high-back leather chairs and cozy couches with an après-ski environment of fashioned tree logs and stack stone.
Vegas hq’d PURE Management now owns LAX nightclub and Noir Bar at the Luxor, PURE nightclub and the Pussycat Dolls Lounge and Venus Pool Club at Caesars, Tangerine nightclub and Social House restaurant at TI, the Lucky Strike Lanes at the Rio, Dick’s Last Resort restaurant at the Excalibur, and the Coyote Ugly bar at NYNY. It also has one venue outside of Vegas with its Aura nightclub on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Plans for a PURE nightclub to open in Miami next year and a new nightlife enterprise with Mindfreak magician Criss Angel are also on the drawing boards.
Co-owner Robert Frey told me: “We are so excited about opening Company and we couldn’t be happier with our celebrity partners. The three of them – Nicky, Nick and Wilmer - have been involved in the process from Day one and they’ve brought their enthusiasm and ideas to the table. They improved upon the renderings and they’ve been hands on with the tasting menus. They trust us because they know we respect their name and image and we don’t upset that trust. They are as thrilled as we are with the fabulous design. It has a trendsetting comfort to it. We wanted an eclectic bistro highlighted with comfort food that could still be a serious dining experience; being fun yet serious is our specialty. Our lesson learned with Social House proved people want a great variety of dishes rather than narrow menus in order to enjoy a tremendous experience, and we’ve kept that new philosophy with Company. We are really proud of the design; it is a unique room and we have hip young chefs and we just let them roll with it as it fits into our circle of customers where everyone is a celebrity.”