Reports of Las Vegas's demise have been greatly exaggerated. True, tourism is down around 10%, and prices are up (more on this below), but the conventions have returned, and on most weekends, reservations in the better restaurants are harder to find than single-deck blackjack.  Chinatown continues to boom, and the Arts District (downtown) has so many bars, brewpubs and watering holes that you'll never be thirsty for more than half a block. On the Strip, a famous face has relocated himself into sparkling new digs, upscale Asian shows no signs of abating, upscale Indian is the new rage, and the best restaurant in town just celebrated its twentieth anniversary.

JOĒL ROBUCHON TURNS 20

When Joël Robuchon first planted his flag on American soil in 2005, it was not in New York, California or Chicago, but with two restaurants––Joël Robuchon and L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon––side-by-side at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Their arrival was heralded by Ruth Reichl at Gourmet magazine as a seminal moment in American gastronomy. Robuchon  had been fêted ten years earlier as the "Chef of the Century" by the Gault-Millau restaurant guide, and his sushi bar inspired L'Atelier, and more formal namesake room were giant leaps forward for French food both haute and bourgeois, in Vegas and elsewhere. In 2011, original chef Claude Le Tohic won a James Beard award for Best Chef Southwest, and in the ensuing years, both restaurants have remained true to the master's reputation for maximum flavor extracted with precision and presented with elegant simplicity.

    We've sung this restaurant's praises so often we almost feel like a broken record, but so many things about it are sui generis. A formidable mignardise trolley still beckons as you enter the dining room, foretelling  your willpower's inevitable demise––diet death by a thousand cakes. The bread cart alone (presented with 16 varieties, all baked in house), has to be the most impressive in America. The Bordier butter precedes it, wheeled to your table under a glass dome lovingly encasing a cylinder of Brittany churned cream the size of an artillery shell. Whatever amuse bouche appears (such as lemon gelée topped with anise cream) will have you scratching your head as to how much flavor punch can be compressed into such small bites.

    Robuchon (who died in 2018) drilled his troops well, and you can taste his attention to detail on every plate. In celebration of the anniversary, we indulged in a re-creation of one of the original tasting menus ($275 then, $525 now, with less expensive á la carte options available). Executive Chef Elezar Villanueva still performs minor miracles with a humble ingredients: cream of lettuce soup, tuna tartare with Bell pepper confit, and a single frog leg wrapped in kataifi  filo and punctuated with garlic and small chanterelles.

    This is cooking at its most elevated but without affectation. No sleight of hand is invoked, nor guess work required. In keeping with Éscoffier's  philosophy, things taste like themselves, only more so. So it is with a 48-hour (sous vide poached) leg of baby lamb, so tender and gently infused with Moroccan spices you'll question ever enjoying lamb any other way. Or his Brittany lobster in a small pool of seafood bouillon––the briny concentrated flavor of the homard moderatedby the slightly sweet broth. The usual haute cuisine signifiers––caviar, truffles and foie gras––are in use but judiciously so. Nothing overwhelms; everything has its place. The point being to make every bite a revelation, on the palate, not on the internet.

    The deep purple and cream décor, replete with the obligatory flowers, soothing drapery and massive chandelier, has held up well, invoking late Twentieth Century Michelin-approved plushness without stuffiness. Whatever haughtiness you might expect from such a formal dining room is quickly dispelled by a staff that puts everyone at ease. Many of them are multi-lingual, and all seem to have a twinkle in their eye as they guide you through some of the best cooking on the planet.

DOWNTOWN'S FRENCH REVOLUTION

    French food in Las Vegas may have gone through a resurgence  in the early aughts with the likes of Robuchon, Guy Savoy, Pierre Gagnaire coming to the big hotels, but in the neighborhoods, the pickings have always been slimmer than a ficelle. Whether James Trees' Bar Boheme signals a bistronomy renaissance remains to be seen, but its opening in mid-year gave lovers of Gallic cuisine a reason to rejoice. Finally, a full-fledged, unapologetic frog pond, smack in the middle of the Arts District, dishing up toothsome takes on boeuf Bourguignon, sole Veronique, escargot and soupe à l'oignon. Slide into a corner booth, and dive into the all-French wine list with your tarte flambée, steak frites or crispy-skin poulet roti, and you can almost convince yourself you're on the Rive Gauche.

    Even though Trees made his name with the wildly popular and very Italian Esther's Kitchen (just down the street), he was classically-trained in the French catechism (at the CIA, then stints with Eric Ripert, Heston Blumenthal, and Michael Mina, among others), and will tell you his first love was cuisine classique. Like the French, he takes his culinary clichés very seriously. His baguette is baked in-house, and his chicken liver pâté, frisée lardon salad, and that onion soup are exemplars of the form. Burgundy snails get their own puff pastry jackets, and the duck fat fries are in a league of their own.

    Trees also sources good beef and knows how to sauce it––with flawless renditions  of au poivre, Bordelaise, and Béarnaise accenting the bavette, filet and rib eye. Further good news comes from the pricing. Those cuts cost substantially less than they do two miles to the south. A 32-ounce, dry-aged entrecôte here runs $155. At some of our more famous steakhouses, you'll pay twice that. With a sophisticated cocktail program and top-notch management, Bar Boheme has made a statement and is looking to change the face of Main Street into something besides a good place to do a pub crawl.

        Catherine followed up with the health official, who said only that “at the present time, the people exiting from the Victoire do not seem as ill as those from the first three hotels,” which is what Catherine reported the next day. The Paris newspapers were somewhat more alarmist, one or two criticizing the government for not acting soon enough on the news, another warning that all of Paris might be shut down within hours. If that happened, there would be little Katie and David could do on their own, while Catherine, as a working reporter, would be allowed on the streets as she needed to be.
         “If they shut down Paris,” said Katie, “you and I are going to be in quarantine, David, and not returning to New York for two more weeks.”
         “I wouldn’t mind so much,” he said, “but we’re going to be stuck in our hotel watching CNN all day, ordering room service.”
         “Better here than anywhere else.”
         The couple had, in fact, moved to a smaller, much less expensive hotel of St.-Germain, Hôtel Delavigne, where, for the moment, business at the shops and restaurants was already slowing down, with foot traffic scarce. They kept in touch with Borel and Catherine, and at least for the day, the government had made no move towards a shut-down, instead simply cautioning people of the possibility of more attacks and more virus on the street. Everyone was advised to buy and wear masks at all times on the street.
         The next morning, nothing had changed so Katie and David took advantage of their freedom of movement and went to the Hôtel Victoire, which was still blocked off and guarded but completely quiet. Katie took the opportunity to interview some of the local people from the neighborhood about their reactions to the attack. Little good copy came from that, since everyone said more or less the same thing, repeating the words “Quel disgrâce!” and “Pas civilizé!”
         Borel had obtained the guest roster from the Victoire, hoping that the needle in the haystack might somehow be in there. He sent it by e-mail to Catherine’s laptop at her apartment, where Katie and David met her at eleven AM, after Borel had interviewed the desk clerk and concierge from the Victoire, after which he asked if Catherine would like to interview them. As before, the hotel employees were happy to help the CNN newswoman, whom they’d seen on TV, not to have their own moment in the limelight but to help shine light on a story that had such dire repercussions for their place of employment.
         They met at Catherine’s apartment. The clerk was young, in his thirties, the concierge in his sixties and he had been at the Victoire for more than twenty-five years, working his way up to his present position. They told the Americans that the hotel had been only fifty percent full that night—the desk clerk said the earlier attacks had had an effect on bookings throughout the city—and that most guests were back in their rooms by eleven. As in the other attacks, the virus had taken hold after midnight, with guests pouring into the lobby at six the next morning.
         “Were there any guests who did not return at all?” asked David.
         The two men perused the list and said that there were some who came in very late, well after midnight, but only one did not return after going out at around eight o’clock. The desk man pointed to a name, and David, remembering some vague connection of the name to Marseille,  said, “Louis Jourdan? The actor, was staying here?”
         “Ah, no, Monsieur,” said the concierge, “This was a woman, Louise Jourdan. She checked in at seven and went out an hour or so later, then did not return to the hotel that evening.”
         “Do you know anything about this woman?” asked Katie.
         “No, I had never seen her before. She was not young but very attractive for her age—”
         The concierge interrupted his young colleague and said, “Louise Jourdan? That is a little unusual.”
         Catherine asked, “Pourquoi, Monsieur?” The man raised his finger in the air and said, “Louise Jourdan was a kind of legend to the war generation in Paris, especially women. Almost nothing is known about her, but, apparently, she was a very beautiful prostitute who everyone believed collaborated with the Germans or at least lived among them. But it turned out that she was a very important conduit of information for the Paris underground.”
         “What happened to her?” asked Katie.
         “She was eventually found out by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp. No one ever heard from her again, but she was revered as a heroine.”
         “So, if she’d survived the war, she would be how old now?”
         The man shrugged and said, “I would say, perhaps, seventy or seventy five.”
         “And this Louise Jourdan you checked in, can you describe her?” asked Borel.
         “She would be about the age of Louise Jourdan. She was fairly tall, still slender and quite attractive for her age. She had dark hair, a little gray, which she had tied in a chignon. Oh, yes, he also had a little—I do  not know what you call it in English—une tache de naissance.”
         “A birthmark,” said Catherine. “Where?”
         “Just above her lip, here.”
         Katie looked at David and said, “Oh, my God!”