Food Arts

The marketing may be risqué, but the well equipped kitchens at The Cosmopolitan suggest a serious food destination.

 “If it's true that The Cosmopolitan is Las Vegas' last hurrah—the last great resort-casino to open on The Strip—then Sin City is going out with a culinary cry of magnificent proportions…The Cosmopolitan is home to two restaurants from Ferran Adriàacolyte Jose André—China Poblano and Jaleo.

How upscale is the kitchen at Jaleo? According to kitchen designer Jimi Yui, one of his assignments was to create a custom-built paella stove—a wood-burning paella stove!—inside a casino. ‘That was really cool. I got paella lessons from José. He told me he wanted to replicate the rustic paella stoves of Valencia. 

‘They're just a couple of metal rods on top of twigs on fire. I had to build something like that in a hotel, with the fire marshal and the health department breathing down my neck. We wanted to be able to cook paella over wood. It's like a 10-foot diameter object. It's a beautiful thing. His cooks are all going to have to learn to cook on this thing, just like they have in Spain for hundreds of years.’ It sits in the middle of the main dining room at Jaleo—five iron rings, a pile of wood stored in the middle, a giant Gaylord ventilation system overhead. Atop each iron ring sits a full-sized paella pan with wood burning underneath.

‘You cannot find anything like this outside of Spain,’ explains Ruben Garcia, culinary director of Andrés' many restaurants. 

‘Most of our equipment is by Jade. But our paella stove is by Jimi Yui. It's one of a kind.’”