| rev:text
| - The short review: 4 star food, 2 star service.
Beauty & Essex is a highly pretentious and over-priced "speak-easy tapas bar" with mediocre service, horrible acoustics, and your typical rowdy vegas crowd. Its only redeeming quality is the fantastic food. If you want less pretentiousness and better service, go to Cleo.
The long version:
The restaurant was largely empty when I arrived for a reservation at 6pm for me and 6 friends. We had a last minute add-on and wanted a table for 8, but the hostess up front gave us misinformation saying that we had to wait to be seated when the whole party arrived or if we were seated early they would kick us out at 7:45pm. We decided to wait at the bar. Then when we went to get seated at around 6:30, she said we missed our reservation by 1.5 hours (wrong) and that we would need to give back the table at 7:45p. This made no sense as the restaurant was largely empty at the time, and the idea that a restaurant (a high-end one at that) would have a seating time limit is odd. She also clearly had our timing off. But whatever, we get seated at a table and our waitress comes by and states that "we must be in a hurry and that we'll need to leave by 7:45". Again, what is with these people trying to get rid of us?? Luckily we were able to clarify this situation with management, but it definitely didn't start our evening off well.
The hidden restaurant is sneakily located behind a faux "pawn shop" with a cool secret entrance and fabulous decor. It's a cool spot that makes you feel swanky and part of the in-crowd just because you know about the place. The interior is dark and lush and very romantic. But other than that, the restaurant is not very well thought out. First, no restroom in the restaurant (I guess that might be a vegas thing?). Second, the whole seating area is filled with 4 person tables that are basically touching each other, and more than once wait staff dropped dishes. I can only imagine this is bc the restaurant is hard to move around. Third, the acoustics were absolutely terrible. I could barely hear the person sitting next to me, let alone others at my table or the waitress herself! The atmosphere, while dark and seemingly intimate, is not conducive to enjoying other people's company.
However, the food is phenomenal. Dishes are small plates meant for sharing and the prices are pretty high. But man, the food is GOOOOOOD. We all ordered about 3 dishes per person and shared amongst the table. Would highly recommend:
1. French Onion Soup Dumplings - Incredible. Cheesy. Flavorful. Bite-sized deliciousness.
2. Grilled cheese, smoked bacon and tomato soup dumplings - It's the perfect combo of tomato soup and grilled cheese in one bite.
3. Garganelli - One of the best pasta dishes I've had in a long time
4. Thai style deep fried shrimp - Very tasty, not too sweet, not too salty, and shrimp was fresh.
5. ANY OF THE DESSERTS. THEY ARE ALL GOOD. (my fave was the donuts, but the devil's food layer cake with milk ice cream was also incredible).
Tips:
*Get here early
*Free champagne for ladies
*Good for small groups
*If driving to the Cosmo, park on east side and take east elevators up to 3rd floor :)
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