“It’s just like Better Call Saul,” says my 16-year-old son, craning his head from the airport taxi. He doesn’t mean sibling rivalry and Mexican drug cartels, but the flurry of lawyers’ billboard ads zipping by. He may not have noticed them before, but this is not his first trip here; I have family in southern Utah, so we’ve visited Las Vegas a fair bit more than the average UK family. We always stay a few nights in Vegas to acclimatise before we hire a car and drive north, which comes as a surprise to many. A place where 24-hour drinking and gambling is the norm doesn’t scream “family holiday”, but as the children — Zach and his brother Sam, who’s now 20 and not with us this time — have got older they’ve moved on from having fun in the pool to craving adventure and entertainment.
This year we only had 48 hours, but we packed in loads — it’s the best way to deal with jet lag. It’s hard not to be drawn to the bright lights and sensory overload that is the Strip — the screaming passengers on the rollercoasters of the New York-New York hotel, the 460ft-high musical fountains of the Bellagio, the 24-hour bright lights of the craps tables — but after that initial excitement, I can only recommend getting away from the neon and slot machines and into the Arts District of the city.
Las Vegas is putting a lot of effort into showing tourists there is more here than casinos. Downtown, east of the Strip, the Arts District is the hipster part of town with the best coffee shots and cool vintage shops. I picked up some great side-buttoned Fifties jeans and Nineties sunglasses from Rockin Bettie; Zach was thrilled to find vintage Dickies and an old varsity jacket next door in Glam Factory Vintage.
There are also quality places to eat that don’t offer large tables to hen parties or charge inflated prices for celebrity chefs. Esther’s Kitchen is the current hot spot for locals and in-the-know tourists. Here, chef James Trees takes local produce — DiNapoli tomatoes and Harry’s berries — and turns it into great-quality, well-priced meals that are served by happy, charming staff. He started work as a teenager in the kitchen of the Mirage hotel on the Strip, returning in 2012 after years abroad working for Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck and on the Hell’s Kitchen TV show for Gordon Ramsay. His experience shows in dishes such as porchetta with pork jus sandwiches, homemade chitarra verde pasta and garlic-oil-poached tuna salad (mains from £12; estherslv.com).
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A quick cab ride away is Area15, an arts and entertainment complex in a cluster of warehouses. They have been divided up into spaces “occupied” by artists and visionaries who have designed various experiences aimed at challenging the way you view the world. The highlight for us was the immersive interactive experience Omega Mart, where art collective Meow Wolf has created a “portal” that leads to a mind-bending world where actor-guides help you try to figure out a story of a possible alien abduction. Still with me? This all takes place behind the façade of a supermarket that sells cans of Gender Fluid high-energy drink (you can buy the flavoured water for $5 in the gift shop) and inflatable Swan Things by the artist David Shrigley. I know, it’s hard to explain, but it is outstanding. Most importantly, it gained top marks from the teenager (£49; omegamart.com).
We might have been swerving the casinos, but it’s always worth taking in a show. This time we arrived just after the opening of Mad Apple, the first Cirque du Soleil show with speaking performers alongside the acrobatics. Three stand-up comics provided hilariously edgy interludes between the singing, dancing and more traditional gasp-inducing acts — such as the “sky-dancer”, who performs hands-free above our heads suspended by her hair, and traditional wheel-of-death acrobats. It felt like a New York-themed 1950s variety show, only with rapping, basketball and plenty of audience participation (£49; cirquedusoleil.com).
We also finally ticked off the bucket-list helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon. This was something I had been meaning to do since my first trip to Vegas in my early twenties, and now Zach was old enough to enjoy it with me. It proved worth the wait. We took the first flight of the day, at 8am, to miss the heat of the day and the famous red-rock, deep-valley landscapes were spectacular, although the strain of the 20-year drought was visible as we flew over Lake Mead. This is where past mob activity was recently revealed, human remains having been uncovered by the reservoir’s receding water levels. It brought home the darker side of Vegas history (from £320pp; papillon.com).
To the American tourists who come to Vegas, one of the great things about the city’s resort hotels is that they are able to attract the very best chefs and restaurant names from around the world. Hotel restaurants offer a phenomenal choice, from premium wagyu steaks at Carversteak in Resorts World Las Vegas to high-end dim sum at Tim Ho Wan in Palms Casino Resort, but I knew my son would enjoy the more informal food-truck experience of Roy Choi’s Best Friend restaurant in the Park MGM. The food was superb, especially the outstanding kogi short rib tacos — the Korean barbecue sauce and salsa combo they come with shouldn’t work, but they do. The staff are hip and west-coast cool, and the diners have come to have a good time; laughter from the room almost drowns out the music.
The other new attraction in Vegas — and one that works for the whole family — is sport. The Las Vegas Valley now has three major league professional teams: the Vegas Golden Knights (hockey), the Las Vegas Raiders (American football, relocated here from California in 2020) and, most recently, the Las Vegas Aces (basketball). The city now has more than 20 sports venues, but plan ahead because tickets are in great demand. It’s the same for concerts — in the week preceding our trip Morrissey and bass virtuoso Thundercat played, and my son would have loved tickets to either. I’d better start planning our next trip.
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Sara Rumens was a guest of Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, which has room-only doubles from £100 (virginhotelslv.com). Fly to Las Vegas
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