New Beauty & Essex restaurant-bar offers plenty of sparkle

Tao Group will open its 23rd venue to the public on Monday, another multimillion-dollar restaurant-bar with a jewelry motif named Beauty &Essex.

Beauty &Essex takes the place of The Cosmopolitan hotel’s delicious but hidden Comme Ca.

The new eatery has addressed its challenging-location issue by installing a bright sign, redecorating the exterior lounge next to the escalators, and relying on Tao Group’s considerable marketing and PR brigade.

I took a “hard-hat tour” during final construction. What’s Beauty &Essex like?

The unique theme is pawnshop jewelry.

So the entrance is a retail shop/fake pawn store, which sells vintage goods Tao bought from New York pawnshops, such as custom jewelry, a $6,000 handmade leather guitar and $25,000 diamond-encrusted necklaces.

You walk through the bottleneck hallway (with its Liberace-style mirrored ceiling) to find five dining rooms, and this is what you see:

■ Walls draped with faux pearl necklaces, tied in knots as if tucked into cleavage.

■ Mosaic tiles, and walls of silk brocade panels stitched, in India, in hues of metallic gold.

■ A wall comprised of otherwise empty gold picture frames but pinned by dangling lockets.

■ And two back dining rooms decorated with lizard-skin banquettes, lamps like earrings and chandeliers evoking bracelets.

It’s a sumptuous-looking place that will likely wow tourists, while Strip-inured locals will probably take a more subtle view, since glamour is our everyday.

Tao Group partner Rich Wolf describes the lighting as warm and inviting, the temperature about 72 degrees, and the music as R&B and old-school hip-hop played at a volume that allows eaters at six-tops to hear each other without yelling.

A favorite dish of both Wolf and chef Chris Santos: French onion soup dumplings.

Wolf wouldn’t tell me how much the creation cost.

“I hope it looks like $10 million,” is all Wolf would say.

On Saturday, B&E will give a private look to a VIP, invite-only crowd of media and celebrities (RSVPs include actors Anthony Mackie, Austin Stowell, Ellen Pompeo with husband Chris Ivery, Bethenny Frankel, Anthony Anderson, and Derek Hough).

Wolf and workers have been toiling around the clock to craft finishing touches, which included ripping the decor out of the back room and starting it from scratch, one week before grand opening.

“I have a reputation for making many, many, many change orders, which escalates the cost of the job dramatically,” Wolf said and then changed the word “change.”

“I like to say, ‘I do not make changes, I fix mistakes,” the perfectionist said.

‘LAS VEGAS OSCARS’

I ran into the beloved self-esteem champ Oscar Goodman on Thursday. We were speaking to a traveling group of students from London’s Cass Business School at the former mayor’s restaurant downtown.

“Where’s your hat?” Oscar said, as friendly as ever. I get that a lot. It was in the Town Car.

Oscar was talking about the potential for an NFL team coming here, so I asked: What should a Vegas NFL team be named?

Oscar paused for just an olive-sized second and answered:

“Las Vegas Oscars.”

Well, obviously.

IGGY BETS ‘SMALL’ $100 HANDS

The other day, I told you about Iggy Azalea’s take on fame, because the pop-rap musician is in town Saturday to headline “CBS Radio’s SPF” at The Cosmopolitan’s Boulevard pool, along with Alessia Cara, Lukas Graham, Fifth Harmony, Kygo and Mike Posner ($57-$123).

I neglected to mention Azalea is a somewhat frequent Vegas blackjack player.

“I went through the ropes, playing all different kinds of games. I used to play casino ‘War,’ I’m embarrassed to say,” she said.

She’s only ever won (over the long haul) at blackjack, she said.

“Sometimes, I’ll have to sit there for hours and hours, or sometimes days, without showering,” she said.

She doesn’t bet big, she said, just, like, $100 hands. Her biggest haul: $18,000.

She likes to walk when she’s up, so she can buy, say, a couch.

“I’m just not really prepared to lose the big bucks,” she said.

Doug Elfman can be reached at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. On Twitter: @VegasAnonymous