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| - I've never been here for dinner (although I have sampled some of the menu), so this review is for the lounge and bar area only. Cutting to the chase, this is one of my favorite lounges on the Strip and is *fully* deserving of five stars....with one annoying and easily-remedied exception.
This is a fantastic place to bring Vegas newbies, and always feels like a special experience. Wind your way through the pawn shop, through the unmarked entrance door and past the hostess stand, then hang an immediate right into the lounge. Yes, it's essentially just the holding zone for diners waiting for their tables to be ready, but it's a far cry from standing outside Applebee's waiting for your buzzer to go off.
The lounge is dark, moody, and dramatically draped with strings of pearls that all meet in the room's central chandelier. The couches and chairs are upholstered in supple, purple leather, and textured walls with brass sconces complete the atmosphere. Everyone is dressed to impress (as you should be), and the high turnover of gorgeous denizens ensures primo people watching.
The bartenders are fantastic, the drinks are imaginative, and the DJs are spinning 90s hip hop. Oh, and French onion soup dumplings. What more could you ask for?
The subtracted star is due to confusion & inconsistency regarding Cosmopolitan's property-wide "Unlock Your Mondays" offer. According to the Cosmo website, Beauty & Essex offers "buy one cocktail, get one complimentary featured cocktail" from 9-11pm every Monday. When I visited in June, my group used this promo to order 2-for-1 signature cocktails, but when I visited in July, I was told that the promo only covers house cocktails...so for every sublime signature cocktail we ordered, we'd get, say, a complimentary old fashioned with soda in it. Ack.
It's a minor niggle, but annoying nonetheless. Still, don't let the Monday Cocktail Crapshoot keep you away, because Beauty & Essex is still a very special place to spend an evening.
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