What Travel Advisors Need to Know About the New Las Vegas Food-and-Drink Festival, Drink Las Vegas

Devoted foodies and cocktail enthusiasts who fondly remember the citywide “Vegas Uncork’d” festival that ran a few years back now have new fantasy material: Drink Las Vegas, an annual food-and-drink festival that recently finished up its successful debut in late September.

And this ambitious MGM Resorts-dedicated affair – with events spread over ARIA, Bellagio, Park MGM and the Cosmopolitan – takes Vegas food-and-drink festivals to another level with celebrity chef spotlights, nightly walk-around tastings, state-of-the-art mixology, James Beard Foundation dishes, celebrity appearances and high-profile F&B professionals from major U.S. and international markets along with MGM’s in-house chefs, bartenders and mixologists. Advisors should let clients know that despite the event’s title, the weekend was as much about food as drink.  

With the benefit of being onsite for the entire 4-day event, TMR had a front row seat as the experiences unfolded. The following represent highlights of most of the attended events, all with executive chefs and chief mixologists not only present, visible and engaged, but actually serving their creations to attendees while graciously posing for photos and answering questions about their respective craft.  

Intimate Dining Experiences  

Despite drawing over 7,000 attendees in total, several intimate events were notable. Eleven limited-seating, hosted dining experiences spread throughout the weekend showcased chef-driven, multi-course meals – with cocktail pairings, of course – in restaurant venues across the four resorts. And the relatively compact environs provided the ability for chefs and mixologists to personally introduce their sophisticated menu items while providing social interaction. These two events attended by TMR were representative of the caliber of F&B talent involved festival-wide: 

Elements of Agave: A Cocktail Lunch 

Hosted by Mexico City-based chef Daniela Soto-Innes, Laura Ozyilmaz of San Francisco’s Dalida and mixologist Eli Martinez of Mexico City’s Tlecan (recognized by The World’s Best 50 Bars), the 3-course lunch revolved around agave – the source plant for tequila and mezcal. While enjoying welcome cocktails, guests mingled with the chefs who described how the agave would show up in every form on the menu: roasted, smoked and poured. Chickpea Agauchile creatively mixed kampachi with sweet potato and a corn tostada; the Sea Urchin Tamalito de Maíz topped a new-corn tamalito with the fish in a vanilla oil and habanero sauce; and the Lamb Barbacoa was a hearty main enhanced with passion fruit and pineapple butter. After that hearty dish, the Mini Mole Negro Paletas (frozen bars) cut through the richness perfectly. Concordant with the theme, mixologist Martinez paired each course with tequila- and mezcal-based creations using fresh juices, organic syrups and and other mixers that purposely didn’t overpower the dishes. 

MarUmi: A Latin-Japanese Inspired Lunch 

Following in the footsteps of Nobu Matsuhisa – the pioneer of Peruvian-Japanese cuisine- James Beard Foundation award-winning chef Michelle Bernstein (La Cañita, Miami Beach) and Diego Oka (La Mar, Miami) did justice to the genre with a 3-course menu featuring a shaved daikon roll filled with crabmeat; an almost-too-pretty-to-eat Causa Nikkei with toro tartare, Peruvian peppers and silky potato; and the Entraña al Carbón, which paired a skirt steak with miso-glazed bone marrow. Award-winning bartender Julia Momosé (Kumiko, Chicago) provided creative cocktail pairings with each course using combinations of Japanese whiskeys, green tea shochu, sakes, ginger liqueur, sherry and vermouth, explaining that as the courses progress with intensity of flavor, so do the paired cocktails. As a finishing touch, an attractive plate of petit fours was chased with Oishii matcha liqueur over ice. 

Signature Tastings 

The signature events of the weekend revolved around the three, nightly walk-around tastings, held at ARIA’s Yucca Pool and featuring more than 35 unique stations – roughly divided into 40% beverage-focused and 60% culinary-themed. The chef-driven booths featured one special dish, each portioned into one or two bites. Any station, however, could be visited multiple times, since one price (starting at $250) covered unlimited tastings and beverages. Here’s how each of the tasting events – active from 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. – unfolded, along with highlights. 

Thursday Night Signature Tasting 

With special guests Sammy Hagar and Shaquille O’Neal joining decorated chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten (PRIME Steakhouse, Bellagio) as hosts, the weekend started off with a celebrity bang. Guests strolled around ARIA’s Yucca Pool, enjoying tastes and sips at the outlets, most positioned in or in front of cabanas. Impressive bites from STK Steakhouse at The Cosmopolitan (NY steak and jalapeno fritter w/ tangy tomatillo aioli) and Catch at ARIA (Catch Roll: crab meat, torched salmon, pickled daikon and miso honey) drew interest, as did Giorgio Rapicavoli’s (Luca Osteria, Miami) banana foie-gras torchon on a brown-butter brioche. And washing it all down with intricate cocktail creations from Bar Madonna in Brooklyn, Tacube Contracorriente in Mexico City and other outlets completed the evening. 

Friday Night Signature Tasting 

An expanded roster of chefs and bartenders took over the pool on Friday night in a collaboration with the James Beard Foundation (JBF) to spotlight talent whose work defines the modern cocktail and culinary canon. JBF winner Tom Colicchio (Craftsteak, MGM Grand Las Vegas) and Tiffany Derry (Roots Southern Table, Dallas) led the charge, but other chefs and mixologists presented equally impressive offerings. JBF winner Michelle Bernstein (Cafe La Trova, Miami) served her arroz con pollo croquetas with saffron aioli in a one-bite wonder, while several mixologists presented a collection of clarified and infused cocktails using premium spirits, botanicals and other techniques. 

Saturday Night Signature Tasting 

The celebrity-chef star wattage ramped up considerably on Saturday evening, as MGM Resorts brought out their top-notch talent to present gourmet tastes. Michael Mina (Michael Mina, Bellagio; Bardot Brasserie, ARIA; Orla, Mandalay Bay) proudly presented his Ahi tuna atop fava-bean falafel, based on his mother’s recipe; Wolfgang Puck graciously posed for photos with guests while spotlighting his luxe bite – a crispy potato-shell cannolo filled with lemon creme fraiche and Kaluga caviar; and Masaharu Morimoto (Morimoto Las Vegas, MGM Grand) went next-level with his flash-fired A5 Japanese Wagyu beef sukiyaki. 

On all three evenings, mixologists and bartenders from across the country, along with those from MGM’s Las Vegas resort portfolio proffered their full-sized craft cocktails to accompany the bites. Also present throughout the three nights were over 20 spirit-focused booths from Jager, Don Julio and Sazerac, among other notable brands. Meanwhile, at the SipMARGS bar, influencer Alix Earle’s read-to-drink, low-ABV margaritas drew added attention when Earle made an appearance on Sat. night. 

Cocktail Hours, After Parties and Panel Discussions 

Bookending the meals and tastings over the weekend were several other sophisticated events that highlighted Drink Las Vegas’ emphasis on the increasingly-impressive evolution of cocktails, along with the relatively-new emphasis of cocktail pairing vs. traditional wine pairing with meals. 

In The Mix: Music Meets Mixology was essentially a venue-wide sensory experience at On The Record inside Park MGM, where host and chef Roy Choi (Best Friend, Park MGM) dished out his Bulgogi Ribeye over rice while DJs spun genre-specific tunes in each room. Meanwhile, several bar takeovers from Stone & Sail (New York), Lemon (Chicago), Employees Only (New York) and others featured custom libations – with fat-washed, smoked and infused cocktails prominent. 

Caviar & the Classics was true to form, as guests enjoyed classic cocktails with tastes of caviar at The Pinky Ring by Bruno Mars (Bellagio), with live music by Mars’ house band. 

At The Future of the Restaurant Cocktail panel discussion, four prominent bartenders from top-rated restaurants across the U.S. opined about which cocktails are currently in vogue for diners, how low-ABV and zero-proof beverages are becoming increasingly popular, and why Gen Z drinkers are driving a renaissance of the classic cocktails from their parents’ and grandparents’ eras.  

In other celebrity-studded events, Sylvester Stallone hosted a lunch and Q&A at Carbone Riviera (Bellagio), while Johnny Depp made a special appearance at an exclusive, invite-only late night experience at Reserve Bar (Park MGM).      

Logistics 

TMR stayed at the centrally-located Vdara Hotel & Spa, the comfortable all-suite, nongaming, nonsmoking, condo-style hotel at CityCenter (aka the ARIA Campus), which allowed for easy walking access – mostly through climate-controlled, interior passageways – to all of the events at Bellagio, ARIA, The Cosmopolitan and Park MGM. In fact, staying at any of those properties effectively precludes the need to drive anywhere for the festival events, with none more than a 15-minute walk away. And in Vegas, that’s a distinct advantage. 

The cost for most individual events ranged from $95 – $275, and while they are not commissionable, advisors should encourage clients to stay for 3-4 nights in one of the participating MGM properties – including Vdara – principally for the aforementioned convenience. Drink Las Vegas 2027 dates will be announced at a later date.