A 1st look inside the bar replacing the famed Dorsey on the Strip

In The Venetian, at the new Juliet Cocktail Room — named for the famed Juliet Rose — you will not find variations on a theme of roses. There is no giant bloom rising in the bar, like a mutant boutonnière. There are no petaled fixtures or tendriled accents or blushing botanicals. A flower wall, praise heaven, does not infest the space.

Instead, the $5 million Juliet Rose and its romantic associations inspired an opulent ambiance for the former Dorsey, which closed in June after almost seven years.

“The rose was an elegant name, something where we could tell a story behind it,” said Ryan Labbe, founder and CEO of 81/82 Group, the Las Vegas hospitality outfit that created and now operates the bar, which opened this week. “It was rich and elegant, and we tried to make the room exude that sort of feeling.”

The Dorsey, with its profusion of mahogany, oak, brass, leather and book-filled shelves, summoned a (very Vegas take on) a gentlemen’s club/country house library.

Juliet Cocktail Room, by contrast, features a lighter, livelier palette. Seating is upholstered in tones ranging from rose quartz to mustard to burgundy, with the occasional pop of animal print. There are Oriental-ish rugs and new chandeliers and tapestry accent pillows.

Teal flourishes: in scattered bolsters and veining on the new bar top, in sweeping curtains shutting out the casino and high-gloss paint lacquering the bookshelves (with bibelots now replacing most of the books).

The Dorsey helped define the Vegas cocktail experience, but it “needed a refresh,” Labbe said. “The bones are still there, but the room looks totally different. We did everything we could not to get rid of The Dorsey but to create Juliet.”

Fish, cherries and diamonds on pour

The opening cocktail menu runs to about 20 drinks (and whimsical names).

Here Fishy Fishy, a vodka shot for four, features glasses that stack to form a fish and chewy Swedish Fish candy as garnishes. A Cherried Treasure (gin, plum wine, rhubarb amaro) emerges from a chest in swirls of smoked cherry oak.

Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto, a citrus liqueur flecked with rose and lavender, stars in The Queen’s Garden, its surface froth strewn with edible blossoms. A shareable Diamonds Are Forever (rye, amaro, brown butter syrup, sweet vermouth) arrives in a smoking diamond-shaped decanter with diamond-faceted tumblers.

“We spent the right money on glassware,” said Labbe, who clearly embraces high drama on pour. “Are you going to notice a chocolate martini in a regular martini glass or a chocolate martini in a chocolate cube with dry ice? It’s free marketing.”

The cocktail menu will change every six months or so, Labbe added. “We’ll leave the winners on, replace the not so strong ones and give customers different things to try. When we build a menu, we try to be even-keeled, try to do something for everyone.”

Plans also call for a limited menu of small bites to debut by the end of the month. “I think it’s important if people go out and drink, they don’t have to get up and leave if they’re hungry,” Labbe said.

Music from inside the cage

Just inside the entrance to Juliet Cocktail Room lies a golden structure, left over from the Dorsey, that resembles a giant birdcage. If the cage is not exactly a thorn on the Juliet Rose, it strikes some as incongruous, as it did during the previous administration. A reimagining of the bar would seem an ideal opportunity for bye bye birdie.

Although Labbe did not come out and say so, it’s not hard to conclude the birdcage remains because someone wanted it to remain (and perhaps it has even become a signature of sorts).

No matter. Labbe, in a kind of reverse cool, has repurposed the cage to house dueling grand pianos. A cage match, if you will. Sometimes, a singer will accompany the pianists, sometimes not. The music performed will be “things people want to hear,” Labbe said: hip hop, R&B, rock, pop songs.

“It’s offering a different sound, edginess, things you wouldn’t expect to hear coming out of a piano. We are going to be a cocktail bar, and we are going to be an entertainment space.”

Roses, they say, like it when you sing to them.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram and @ItsJLW on Twitter.