The Best Places to Drink and Do in South Las Vegas & The Strip

The dirty martini here landed on Esquire's list of the finest in the country, which tracks: the bar occupies the old Picasso space at the Bellagio, with the fountains putting on their show just outside. It's the cocktail outpost of the Carbone empire, so the room skews dressed-up and the pours skew generous. Order the martini, watch the water, and feel no obligation to explain yourself.

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To get into this speakeasy cocktail bar inside the Horseshoe, you pick up a phone, answer a riddle, and crawl through an entrance. The bar itself looks like a haunted Victorian study, shelves packed with odd artifacts and enough atmosphere to make you forget you're technically in a casino basement. Cocktails run strong and strange, and there's a dedicated mixology classroom if you want to learn why your drink tastes like that.

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A compact caviar and seafood bar just off the Caesars Palace casino floor, where Pringles arrive with caviar French onion dip and nobody blinks. The real trick is a life-sized portrait of a sailing captain that swings open onto a purple-and-turquoise room with a stage, hosting yacht rock nights and karaoke. Expect smoked Old Fashioneds, espresso martinis, and strangers committing to "I Will Always Love You."

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The Vault is a cocktail bar tucked behind a gilded door inside the Bellagio, occupying what used to be the casino's actual cage, which gives the whole room a pleasantly loaded history. A chandelier does most of the atmospheric heavy lifting. The drink list leans into vintage spirits and old recipes, so if you're not sure what you want, describe an era and let them run with it.

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A five-foot resin Pomeranian sets the tone for this dark, moody cocktail lounge inside the Vanderpump Hotel on the Strip. Lisa Vanderpump's Las Vegas footprint runs to black-and-red decor, a martini for two arriving on a skewer of a dozen-odd olives, and a cocktail that comes with caviar. The house gimmick of sealing a secret into a tiny envelope and locking it in a vault is either charming or deeply on-brand, depending on your relationship with reality television.

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