1st look inside new Lotus of Siam opening at Red Rock Resort
At the new Lotus of Siam in Red Rock Resort, time itself is a design element, subtly installed.
There is the bamboo scaffolding rising at the monumental front door and elsewhere in the restaurant, as if completion lay in the future (or has been deferred in a continual process of becoming).
There are red bricks (hand placed) and stylized stone arches, like those found in the ruins of Thai temples and other buildings from the past.
There are corrugated aluminum panels (in the back dining room), the same material used to construct dwellings for the poor in present-day Thailand.
And off the street entrance to the restaurant, there is a pool strewn with 15 brass lotus flowers, an invitation to a moment of timeless reflection (before hitting the khao soi).
What are not design elements at the new Lotus of Siam — as the Review-Journal learned during an exclusive tour in advance of this Friday’s opening — are Thai restaurant clichés like faux orchids and a profusion of golden Thai figures and posters of floating markets on the Chao Phraya River.
In 1999, when the Chutima family opened the original Lotus of Siam on East Sahara Avenue, “the clichés were seen as authentically Thai,” daughter Penny Chutima said. “Now, I don’t want clichés.”
Homegrown, not a knockoff
Lotus of Siam in Red Rock looks like no other Thai restaurant in the city. That’s immediately apparent at the entrance, where an arched door rises 11 feet at its apex.
The door, in a traditional Thai shape, is made from poplar stained to resemble teak (which does best in humid climates, not the desert). The door is carved with a central lotus medallion and with clusters of four juvenile lotus blades, like a Thai version of quatrefoils.
“The door had to be facing south. A south-facing door is better because money goes in,” said Chutima, whose Bua Food Group, a partnership with Tao hospitality co-founder Lou Abin, owns and operates the new Lotus (with Red Rock also a partner).
“We’re very proud to introduce this to Las Vegas,” Abin said. “In Las Vegas, it’s always the knockoff of the original. This one is the real McCoy. It’s homegrown.”
Lanterns, pillows, arches
The new Lotus of Siam cost “north of $5 million” to build out across 8,000 square feet and 280 seats, the partners said. The tour showed where the money went.
The Bua lounge (bua is Thai for lotus) unfurls beyond the front door with 230 lanterns glowing overhead. The bar front stretches down one side of the room, sheltered by a bamboo pergola, with bamboo scaffolding forming shelves on the back bar.
Banquettes extend along the other side of the lounge, garnished with pillows covered in colorful Thai silks. Chutima acknowledged the temptation to filch the accessories. “We’re going to have to hide AirTags inside,” she said with a laugh, referring to the digital trackers.
Stone arches ascending more than 15 feet enclose decorative teak-style screens carved with lotus patterns, creating a dramatic Bua backdrop.
From harvest to wall
The Mali room (the word is Thai for jasmine) lies on the other side of the Bua bar.
An enormous wall hutch piped in stone encloses ranks of brightly painted containers, slightly squat. The containers, nearly 100, are decorative versions of the packs workers in Thailand wear on their backs while harvesting tea.
Large circular booths in quilted leather are arranged beneath a bamboo pergola lush with decorative vines and potted ferns. Bamboo scaffolding, fitted into a large cubby scooped from the brick wall, holds an angel head, a golden elephant.
A blessing to launch the Lotus
Siam, the rear dining room of the restaurant, takes its name from the old Western term for Thailand. Steel trusses span the room. The glass roof retracts. Those corrugated aluminum panels? They’re installed beneath the roof. The panels are properly spattered with rust.
“It’s so humid in Thailand, rust happens,” Chutima said.
The street entrance from the Siam room opens onto the reflecting pool and a garden populated with thickets of green bamboo. The rear façade is faced in more of the red brick, the name of the restaurant stenciled above the door.
On opening day, Buddhist monks will bless the new Lotus of Siam.
Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ItsJLW on Twitter.
