Primrose Reinvents the Three-Meal Restaurant

Primrose

Address: Monte Carlo, 3770 Las Vegas Blvd. S.

Phone: 702-730-6600

Status: Open daily from 6 a.m. to midnight and until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Consider today's opening of Primrose at the Monte Carlo a preview of what’s to come. Chef Bryce Shuman, whose restaurant Betony in New York City earned a Michelin star, teamed up with Sydell Group, the force behind The NoMad in New York City and coming to Las Vegas, to open this restaurant that will serve breakfast through dinner.

Primrose elevates the three-meal restaurant with a menu inspired by the south of France, vegetables and open-fire cooking. And during this preview stage, everything comes with a discount so customers can discover what Primrose is all about.

“This is just the first piece of a big puzzle,” says Andrew Zobler, one of the founders of Sydell Group. “The plan is to start telling the story leading up to the opening of the hotel in March.”

Inside, interior designer Martin Brudnizki broke up Primrose into rooms, each with a residential feel. “When you get there, you will be rewarded by pretty fantastic design and pretty fantastic food,” Zobler says. “You get a pretty good idea of what’s to come.”

Unlike resorts such as SLS, which completely remodeled before reopening, the Monte Carlo kept the lights on while construction carries on in the effort to convert the casino into the Park MGM by next March. About half of the restaurants at the front of the resort closed while inside, Brand Steakhouse shuttered to make way for Bavette’s, opening in October.

“You can’t close down a building of that size. It had to come together in phases,” he says.

For Primrose, the ongoing construction means the patio isn’t finished, and the Monte Carlo’s pool is still under renovations. Once complete, that patio overlooks the pool.

Zobler says the intimate rooms inside Primrose give customers a sense of what the resort will offer with a series of rooms unfolding. The goal is to do that across the resort once it’s complete.

Artwork and photography inside the restaurant give it a sense of intimacy as well. Two large photographs of a picnic that brings the outdoors inside in the main dining room perhaps capture that sense best, he says. David Hockney paintings and a Henrique Oliveira ceiling installation reminiscent of tree roots round out the decor.

Patrick Michael Chin

Primrose fills a 12,155-square-foot space, just off the remodeled lobby. Primrose allocated $2,133,931 in estimated construction costs alone with space for about 375 people. A grill and garden bar, a foyer, a drawing room, ground floor bar, main dining room, plus bookcase and wood-covered walls fill the space.

Former Betony chef Bryce Shuman, who was a James Beard Foundation finalist for Best New Restaurant in the country in 2015, brings some of his New York dishes, such as short ribs, to Primrose. A salmon carpaccio joins American classics such as a chicken club sandwich with brined organic chicken and confit chicken wings.

“Some of the food that you may have seen at Betony in New York but this is not Betony light,” Shuman says. “This is a different restaurant and beast as a whole. …We’ll also have really great takes on American classics for when you go out to eat and just want something delicious.”

Emily Yett, formerly at Herbs & Rye, heads up the beverage program, taking a lighter, fresher approach to drinking and using herbs and other ingredients grown in the restaurant’s garden.

• New York’s Bryce Shuman Heads Up Primrose [ELV]

• Primrose Restaurant Opening at Park MGM Lobby [ELV]