Extravaganza, baby!

Walking into Mix, Alain Ducasse’s stunning new restaurant, is like walking into a glass of Champagne. Thousands of fragile Venetian glass bubbles dangle from the high ceiling. The effect of that half-a-million-dollar “chandelier” is sheer magic that makes you want to dance across the stenciled glass floor.

Every table at this restaurant in the sky has a view from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Sixty-four floors above the Strip, at the top of THEHotel (the luxe new hotel in Mandalay Bay), it feels as if you’re flying like Wendy and Peter Pan right over those blocks of brilliant neon. The truly lucky might snag one of the handful of tables out on the balcony with its heart-stopping view or a romantic table for two enclosed in a cocoon lined in silver leaf.

Las Vegas has always been well over the top, but with the opening of Mix from six-star Ducasse (three for his eponymous Paris restaurant, three for the one in Monte Carlo) and the power lineup of high-end restaurants in Steve Wynn’s new casino, Wynn Las Vegas, dining in Vegas has reached an opulence that stands out even in this city of ridiculous excess.

With $75 corkage fees, caviar supplements in the three digits, fresh fish flown in from the Mediterranean and priced, like rare cheese, by the 100 grams, and water, water everywhere, Vegas ushers in its latest wave of restaurants.

Add gluttony to the many ways it’s possible to sin in Sin City.

But it isn’t just about glitz anymore. Vegas has grown up, culinarily speaking, and though you’ll find enough foie gras, lobster and truffles to make everybody feel like king or queen for a day, the best new chefs are dazzling diners with subtle cooking and compelling ideas.

At the heart of the much-ballyhooed Wynn Las Vegas, Wynn has built a mountain covered with pine trees, complete with dramatic waterfalls gushing over rocks and down its sides. You can see them from various parts of the resort, but the Japanese restaurant Okada looks onto two of them. The main dining room is open to the water and you can almost feel its spray. One lone table floats on a raft moored at the base of a waterfall. Impossibly romantic, it costs $1,200 for omakase (chef’s choice) there whether you’re six or just two.

This high-end Japanese restaurant from Takashi Yagihashi, formerly of Tribute in Detroit, also includes a teppan room (think haute Benihana), a small, exclusive sushi bar and a robatayaki counter, none of which will set you back quite as much. The night I was there, the immaculately attired chef solemnly watched two young cooks-in-training go through their paces at the robatayaki station, grilling shiitake mushrooms, shrimp and other ingredients threaded onto skewers over hardwood charcoal. Razor clams and Copper River salmon were the specials that night, and terrific, but the staff still seems a bit tentative. This is a great spot for a quick, albeit expensive, bite. I’d go for the sushi or the robata over the more ambitious Asian fusion items.

The very grandest restaurant at Wynn is Alex from Alex Stratta, last seen at Renoir in the Mirage. Although I liked Stratta’s food at Renoir, I couldn’t stand the stuffy, over-decorated room. It was like eating in a hatbox in the middle of the casino. Here, he’s been given an imposing dining room well away from the gaming tables, with tall windows looking onto well-groomed shrubs (real) and glints of actual sky.

Guests make their entrance down a grand curved staircase -- the elegant, the dowdy and the glitzed-out Vegas trollops. We’re all here together, dining on French food in a room where Diamond Jim Brady would have been happy unfurling his linen napkin. And if you were wondering, those encrustations on the massive drapes are fabric roses. The service is smooth and professional so that dining here is a distinct pleasure.

If you’re in the mood for something French and contemporary rather than a more traditional bistro or brasserie kind of thing, this is the place. We opted for the prix fixe three-course menu for $110, which offers a number of choices for each course. If you want caviar though, it will be a $225 supplement.

Our meal began with four classic canapes, then a subtly delicious chilled artichoke soup garnished with prawn and shaved radishes. First courses were impeccably executed: asparagus wrapped in crepe and embellished with gorgeous morel mushrooms and asparagus tips and crispy frog legs with ricotta gnocchi and porcini. As a second course, Stratta did a roasted veal with chanterelles and dainty foie gras tart and a stuffed rabbit with green lentils. For a final course, choose the cheese over the sweets.

Mediterranean fresh

One of Chicago’s -- and the country’s -- top Italian chefs, Paul Bartolotta of Spiaggia in Chicago, has an Italian seafood restaurant at Wynn called Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare. The design is a bit overdone -- what are those big Ali Baba jars doing along the staircase? -- and includes its own little pond or lake bobbing with mirrored balls and surrounded by striped cabanas like you’d find at a seaside resort in Italy. Never mind, it’s the food that counts here. I’d drop in just for a bowl of his soulful pasta fagioli made with white beans and tubetti (tube pasta). Sheep’s milk ricotta ravioli, simply sauced with butter and sage, are outstanding, but plin (Piedmontese-style agnolotti) need more supple dough.

Before you order, the effusive Italian waiter will present the whole fresh fish flown in from the Mediterranean that day for you to choose. Priced by the 100 grams, they’re worth every penny for rouget, gilt head bream or orata, for example, which is what I had. Grilled and deboned at the table, this is as good as it gets this far from the Mediterranean. And the chef has the sense to serve the grilled fish simply with a good herb-infused olive oil.

Daniel Boulud of Daniel in New York got a primo location for his brasserie at Wynn, right in front of the casino’s mysterious “water feature,” a shallow lake with water coursing down a stone screen at the far end. At dusk, images are projected onto and through the water, creating the illusion that the observer is almost inside the swirling images. It’s entertaining, kind of like a giant lava lamp. Naturally, at least until the temperatures soar, everybody wants to sit outside on the terrace, where you can see the show close up. We couldn’t get a table out there, but were perfectly happy to sit inside the beautiful, sophisticated room.

Boulud has put together a smart brasserie menu with his famous burger center stage -- the same one that set off a stampede in New York. Believe me, $29 seems like a bargain for this sumptuous, over-the-top burger stuffed with braised short ribs, foie gras and black truffles. He’s got the lavish chilled seafood platters too, but oddly, I didn’t see anybody indulging that night. He also offers his own caviar and cured salmon, both first-class.

But the real thrill here is the house-made charcuterie, notably the rustic pate de campagne, which has a fine livery funk, and the pork, rabbit and foie gras rillettes, which comes in a petite crock with a pile of cornichons, puckery pickled ramps, and excellent sourdough toast. I also liked the artichokes barigoule braised in a fragrant green herb sauce. My soupe de poissons was pretty dull, however, and though I loved the idea of a risotto made with spelt rather than rice, it’s too rich. I’d be back in a heartbeat just for that pate or the rillettes, though.

Unusually enough, the main courses outshine the firsts. There’s a crackling crisp duck confit with divine mashed potatoes, beautiful braised beef short ribs bourguignon -- possibly the best I’ve ever had -- topped with shaved carrots, snap peas and pearl onions and served with what looks like mashed avocado but turns out to be potatoes mashed with ramps. I’m leery of the steak frites when I read that the steak is a filet mignon. Why not an onglet or hanger steak? But this is a gorgeous piece of beef, deeply flavored, and comes with perfect gold fries.

The star of the evening, though, is a lovely gateau Saint-Honore decorated with tiny cream puffs, each topped with a burnt caramel hat and filled with a haunting caramel cream. It is so very French.

French, Asian flavors

At Mix, Ducasse could phone in the menu and people would still come, given the Mandalay Bay restaurant’s spectacular setting. Mix is seriously good, but it’s not a three-star restaurant. It’s something more suited to Vegas: casual French mixed with a soupcon of Asian influences. You could start with a Thai beef salad with a fierce note of chile served in a silver three-legged bowl, or a lush combination of deep-fried and raw artichokes paired with a bar of cold chicken sandwiched with foie gras.

From his $2-million kitchen, Chef Bruno Davillion tosses strozzpreti pasta in butter, ribbons of asparagus and crinkly fresh morels with the perfume of the forests. Definitely on the rich side, but good. Follow with Ducasse’s signature lobster in red curry laced with coconut milk, the farm chicken served with couscous embellished with candied citrus, or the pork en cocotte served from a red enamel saucepan. It’s really pork four ways, with creamy grits at the bottom of the pan, Swiss chard on top and then the pork fest of braised pork belly, pulled pork, pork loin and barbecued ribs. It’s refined and down-home at the same time, which is Ducasse’s genius. His gnocchi are so impossibly rich, though, you’ll want to share.

Service is top notch and the relaxed, knowledgeable sommelier can be truly helpful. Wine prices are steep, however, and if you want to bring your own bottle, corkage is a gasp-inducing $75. Per bottle. (Most of the other restaurants mentioned have a $35 corkage policy.)

Don’t leave without ordering the baba Monte Carlo, which arrives split neatly in half. You get to choose one of three heady rums, which the waiter pours on top until the tender, yeasty cake soaks up every drop. Garnish with softly whipped cream. It’s a dream, 64 stories up.

But hold on -- just when you thought these new places would wrap it up in terms of restaurants in Vegas, another mini-wave is on the way, with some big chefs hanging ten. That would be French three-star chefs Guy Savoy, who is going into the new wing of Caesars Palace, and Joel Robuchon, who is planning not one, but two, restaurants in the MGM Grand. Weighing in on the Italian side will be New York’s Mario Batali, with a restaurant in the Venetian.

What this trio of chefs will bring to the party as their dream restaurants take shape, I can’t begin to imagine. In Vegas, as we all know, the sky’s the limit.

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The hottest new tables

Wynn Las Vegas

3131 Las Vegas Blvd. S. For restaurant reservations: (702) 770-DINE or (888) 320-7110; www.wynnlasvegas.com.

Alex (Alex Stratta). French. Open 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. for dinner. Closed Mondays. Jacket requested. Three-course prix fixe menu, $110 per person; chef’s tasting menu, $145 per person.

Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare (Paul Bartolotta). Casual Italian seafood. Open 11:30 am to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. for dinner.

Daniel Boulud Brasserie (Daniel Boulud and Philippe Rispoli). French brasserie. Open for lunch 11:30 am to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Okada (Takashi Yagihashi). Japanese. Open for dinner 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, to 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Mandalay Bay

Resort & Casino

3950 Las Vegas Blvd S. www.mandalaybay.com.

Mix (Alain Ducasse). French. Open 6 to 11 p.m. (702) 632-9500.

Also worth a visit

Bradley Ogden (Bradley Ogden) at Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. S. Las Vegas; (702) 731-7110. Contemporary American. Great cooking, but at steep prices. An incredibly moist, apple-fed pork chop goes for something like $46. Open for lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., for dinner 5 to 11:30 p.m.

Bouchon (Thomas Keller) at the Venetian Resort Hotel & Casino, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S.; (702) 414-6200. French bistro. Open for breakfast 7 to 10:30 a.m. and for dinner 5 to 10:30 p.m.; oyster bar and cocktail lounge 3 p.m. to midnight.

Corsa Cucina (Stephen Kalt) at Wynn Las Vegas. An Italian Mediterranean place with terrific grilled pizza and a delicious lamb tagine from the wood-burning oven. Open for lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; for dinner 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday (casual); bar menu 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

R-Bar (Rick Moonen) at Mandalay Bay. A seafood restaurant with splendid oysters and clams on the half shell, clam chowder and a spicy shrimp soup, along with truly divine biscuits with cream gravy. Open 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, to midnight Friday and Saturday. (702) 632-7777.

Red 8 Asian Bistro (Hisham Johari) at Wynn Las Vegas. A fanciful Southeast Asian bistro with some of the best dim sum that side of Monterey Park. Open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

SW Steakhouse (Eric Klein) at Wynn Las Vegas. American steakhouse with touches of Alsace, France. Open for dinner 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.