Las Vegas: Popular chef to open first Nobu Hotel later this year

Gordon Ramsay may be making over hotels in his new TV show “Hotel Hell,” but chef Nobu Matsuhisa has gone him one better with the upcoming opening of the sushi chef’s first Nobu Hotel in Las Vegas.

Technically, it’s a hotel within a hotel. Nobu Hotel will feature 181 rooms and suites starting at $300 a night inside the Centurion Tower at Caesars Palace (which leads to this mouthful of a name: Nobu Hotel Caesars Palace).

The ambiance will be Japanese luxury (the 63-year-old chef was born in Japan) with some hip touches, including iPad in-room registration and a Nobu in-room menu. Of course, it will adjoin the 12,775-square-foot signature restaurant that will seat 327 diners, which also is in the works.

The Las Vegas Sun pegs the hotel as an opportunity for the city to step away from the mega-resort model to develop more intimate boutique hotels that offer a different Vegas hotel experience.

And there’s a Hollywood connection, too. Robert De Niro, a longtime partner in the Nobu empire, says he will be filming a movie called “Last Vegas” and will use the new Nobu Hotel as his headquarters while on the Strip, the Las Vegas Sun reports. The site is the first of a $600-million venture to build five more Nobu Hotels over the next two years.

No opening date beyond “late 2012” is offered for the new Nobu Hotel, but reservations are scheduled to open Oct. 1.