Las Vegas' largest residencies are reserved for top celebrity performers who attract new audiences every week.
This year, Phish and Metallica will be at the Sphere, and Kelly Clarkson and Dolly Parton will be at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. And the long-awaited Alinea arrives at Bellagio.
Alinea is not Cirque du Soleil's latest spectacle. That's the name of a groundbreaking Chicago restaurant where chef Grant Achatz combines technically sophisticated cuisine with (literal) fantasy. Think Jackson Pollock-style edible helium balloons and desserts served drizzling and splattering on the table.
Chicago Restaurant's temporary presence in Las Vegas is the latest example of a trend sweeping the world of fine dining. Chefs and restaurants are resident and even tour, rock star style. And foodies with cash to spend are competing for land on reservations.
In an era when celebrity chefs captivate audiences around the world and the wealthiest consumers in the K-shaped economy spend with confidence. These mobile restaurants add an extra element of spectacle to dinners priced like expensive concert tickets. In a 2025 global survey conducted by American Express Travel of people with annual incomes of $50,000 or more, 60% of respondents said they planned to book travel centered around entertainment and sporting events that year. Dining experiences increasingly fit into that category.
6 weeks from this spring Achatz will take over Michael Mina restaurant at the Bellagio, a job almost as hotly anticipated as Metallica's and, in some cases, even more expensive. Dinner at the Alinea x Bellagio Residency, the final stop on the restaurant's 20th anniversary tour of Brooklyn, Tokyo, Miami Beach and Beverly Hills, costs $595 per person, excluding wine, nearly four times the starting price for a Metallica seat.
Deconstructing an artichoke tart
Avid diners will find dishes by Daniel Hamm of New York's Eleven Madison Park at the Charleston Place Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Creative cuisine by Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, who visited the restaurant Mirazur in Menton, Cote d'Azur, France. Or Noma's Cooking in Copenhagen, Los Angeles (which was a short-lived effort that began shortly after explosive reports about Noma's founding chef's past employee abuse prompted the withdrawal of several sponsors).
These months- or weeks-long adventures are an evolution of the popular pop-up dining experiences, which typically last just one or two nights. Longer schedules give chefs the opportunity to be more ambitious and recoup costs.
Get your hands on one of this year's most anticipated tickets: M20: 20 Years of Mirazur. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the three-star Michelin restaurant Mirazur, chef Mauro Colagreco invited Adria to reinterpret some of its most famous dishes. For one course, Adria deconstructs the restaurant's famous artichoke tart and reimagines it as an elaborate, flavorful pastry. Also on the menu is Adria's El Bulli's famous chocolate box. Although it closed in 2011, it is still considered one of the most influential restaurants of the past half century.
Preparations for the residency, which will run from April 1 to mid-May, began more than nine months ago, Colagreco said. “The entire Mirazur ecosystem has already been mobilized, from the kitchen to the research, creative and support teams.”
Difficult logistics
While Mirazur already has the world-class facilities and staff to realize Adria's vision, most residencies are fraught with costly and logistical challenges. Norma's Los Angeles residency, which begins March 11 and runs through June 26, costs $1,500 per person and brings about 130 employees to California from Denmark. Other costs may include shipping and modification of custom service ware.
“We spent close to $400,000 on the addition,” Achatz said of Alinea's efforts at Maybourne Beverly Hills last summer, adding, “We hired a Hollywood production team.” The 19 course menu was presented as a script. The diners accommodated 110 people a night and about 2,000 for the duration of their stay, moving between eight locations each evening inspired by the iconic film. Achatz knows several people who have attended various Alinea residencies over the years.
As the famous dining experience becomes a travel destination, hotels have also become avid supporters. Wyndham Grand Barbados Sam Rose Castle Resort is bringing internationally renowned Caribbean chefs back to the region for a residency series called Navigator's Table that will run until the end of the year.
This year, Copenhagen's Nim Hotel will host seven Michelin-starred restaurants within its 20-seat pagoda for about a month. While Daniel Humm is staying at the Charleston Place Hotel, other star chefs, including Sean Brock and James London, will also be creating their own pop-ups within pop-ups.
real time audition
Residences help chefs expand their range of activities. “We're in a bit of a growth phase right now” after the restaurant group's downsizing due to the pandemic, Achatz said. He added that the weeks of meetings with potential hotel partners will act as “real-time interviews,” with plenty of opportunity to “meet with management, see how their operations work, and see if it's a good fit.”
But he doesn't see residencies as just a stepping stone to more brick-and-mortar restaurants. Alongside the new restaurant, Achatz said, “We're currently working on a completely different concept that will always travel consistently.”
Achatz has been talking about this idea since at least 2002, when he presented the idea at the culinary gathering Madrid Fusion. “I remember being on stage and at the last minute I asked everyone why restaurants need permanent addresses. Why can't we just be like a touring circus or a rock band?”
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Beyond the “experience economy”
In his 1999 book, The Experience Economy, co-authored with B. Joseph Pine II, he argued that customers increasingly seek memorable experiences, not just goods and services. Now, Pine says consumer expectations are changing again. “People increasingly want not just memorable experiences, but transformative experiences.”
DealBook's Sarah Kessler spoke with Pine about this shift, which he discusses in his latest book, “The Transformation Economy,” and what it means for businesses.
Why is being part of the experience economy no longer enough?
You can continue to sell everything you currently offer, including experiences, and there's a market for them. But there are increasing opportunities to go beyond that.
Does the difference between change and experience depend primarily on how you frame it?
The experience will captivate you and remain memorable. If you don't make memories, it's not an experience. However, changes persist over time. It is when there is some specific outcome that you have achieved, usually through a series of experiences rather than one life-changing experience.
You may also consider going to a fitness center. I want to be healthier. You could define it as having washboard abs, or losing 20 pounds, or increasing muscle tone, but how you define it is up to you. That is your desire and you are hiring a fitness center to help you achieve it over time.
Are gyms inherently transformative, or are there versions of gyms that are part of the transformation economy and versions that are not?
Any business that helps people become healthier, wealthier, and smarter is a transformation business. But not all companies realize that. And fitness centers actually charge by experience level, right? They charge you a membership fee. They charge for their time.
How are conversion fees charged?
You want to charge your customers for the proven results they achieve. All the activities you do (services, experiences, products, etc.) are meaningless if you don't achieve those results.
McKinsey just announced on the Harvard Business Review page that it is increasing its fee-for-performance charge because it is unsure about what people will actually do with AI.
Do you think AI is part of what is driving the trend towards a transformed economy?
I think AI will drive people into a transformative economy because AI will be a factor in commoditization. This allows companies to do things with higher productivity and lower costs, which in turn allows them to win higher profit margins and lower prices. And that tends to commoditize you.
At the same time, it can also supercharge you. That's because you can customize what you offer. Customization automatically turns products into services and services into experiences. It's a very relevant experience for a particular person, and exactly what that person needs at the moment. There, you can't help but offer a life-changing experience, a transformation.
Quiz: in high demand
This question comes from a recent article in the Times. Click on your answer to see if it is correct. (Links are free.)
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