Las Vegas Weekly

November 24, 2009 · 11:36 AM

Photo Gallery: Eva talks Beso, CityCenter, Kim Kardashian and Tony

By Robin Leach

Eva Longoria Parker.

Photo: Scott Harrison/Retna/www.harrisonphotos.com

In just nine days -- one week from Thanksgiving -- Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker opens her Beso restaurant and Eve nightclub at the retail and entertainment promenade Crystals in the new CityCenter.

Eva told me in an exclusive interview: “I am so excited. I never imagined when I opened Beso in Hollywood that this would turn into the franchise it’s becoming. For me, I think Vegas is one of the foodiest places. Every time Tony and I go to Vegas, we literally plan our night and our weekend around which restaurants we are going to eat at there. There are so many great places to eat.

“So when I had the opportunity to open Beso Las Vegas, specifically at CityCenter, which I found incredible -- an amazing development -- and an amazing opportunity for Beso, I jumped right in. I thought what a perfect place to expand the Beso brand.

“I have been coming there almost every week since we started work on it. I have watched its progress from bare space on the first drawings to where it’s almost ready to open. It looked like World War 3 a week ago because there are so many people working to finish it, but it is gorgeous. The architecture structure, specifically in Crystals, it’s stunning and it’s nothing you have ever seen in Vegas, which is hard to accomplish.

“I think it’s going to be such a great destination for people all over the world. Whether you eat or shop there, you are going to just want to go there to see it. It’s really a progressive development in Vegas.”

Eva and star chef Todd English of Olives in the Bellagio plan to keep the menu very similar to her first successful star-studded restaurant in Hollywood:

“It’s very similar to Los Angeles. We don’t serve lunch in Beso Hollywood, but that is something we will do in Vegas. That menu will be obviously different because we will have a lot of different options for the lunch menu. The drink menus are the same, but the staple items like the guacamole, the Eva tortilla soup, steak tacos and chili rubbed flank steak are all here. We definitely wanted to have those on the menu, including our desserts.

“Todd English is fantastic, I love him. I am so glad he is onboard for Vegas. I come from a family of cooks, so I have taken a little bit of what I have learned over the years and have incorporated that into a more modern approach to food because in no way is it a Mexican, it’s not a Mexican restaurant. It’s an international restaurant with a beautiful Latin flair, to reflect who I am.”

Photo: Pure Management Group

Eva Longoria Parker and Tony Parker at Pure.

Eva chose the chocolate colored wall coverings from Japan and a chandelier made from the most recent Oscar curtains. She explained: “The minute I saw the Oscars and the chandelier, I said, ‘Oh, that is similar to the design I did in Hollywood.’ My general contractor said, ‘Guess what, we have the opportunity to buy the chandeliers from the Oscars,’ and I said, ‘Get it, get it, get it!’ The look of Beso Hollywood is very classic. It has deep browns and chocolates, and I really think the look of the restaurant is going to stand the test of time. It’s not a fad, it’s nothing crazy and over the top, and that’s what I wanted in Vegas. Let’s keep it classic, but the nightclub, which is Eve, can really jump.”

In Los Angeles, Eva also owns the nightspot Kiss.

“Kiss in L.A. is a lounge, maybe a fourth of the size of what we have in Las Vegas. It's a place where you can go after dinner and have a drink and listen to some music. Eve in Vegas is a proper nightclub. It is table service, bottle service, huge dance floor, amazing video screens, two DJs. We have a 360-degree video screen that hangs in the middle of the dance floor, and the images will be seen from every corner of the club. It’s just really sexy. Upstairs is really sexy and so classy. From obviously the video screens and the wallpaper to the images and the artwork we picked to the uniforms that I picked for the girls. They are sexy. This is Vegas.

“I’ll be in for the opening of Crystals on Dec. 3, which will be our soft opening and then our grand opening on New Year’s Eve. Kim Kardashian has taken the entire place for another big party on Dec. 30.”

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage

Eva Longoria Parker and Mario Lopez at the opening of Eleven Spa at Town Square.

I reminded Eva that in Food Fight, she played Lady X, a beautiful woman who tries to take over the world. So I asked her: “Are you a little bit like that in the real world because I have to wonder how do you find the time to juggle everything you do and now you add a Vegas restaurant to the list?

“I am extremely energetic, and I have more energy than I can expend,” she answered. “So for me, it just works well with my personality to have 10 things juggling in the air for me at once. For me, I always find times for things that I am passionate about.

“The first thing is obviously my family and my husband, and the second is my philanthropy and of course my businesses, which are Beso and my entertainment production company. I am just fortunate of having the personality to match it with the work that is expected from all of these empires.

“I would love to take over the world one city at a time. I won’t be running for president, though, before you even ask the question! More important to plan on spending New Year’s Eve with my husband, Tony, and kissing him at the stroke of midnight in Vegas. Mario Lopez, my brother, will be there. Kim Kardashian will be there. She will be hosting her night-before party, so we are excited.

“CityCenter is the most extraordinary and gorgeous building. It is very hard to accomplish something that has never been; there’s nothing else like it in the world. I am so excited. It will be a home run. Perhaps I should put that differently. In my husband’s sport, it would be a four-point play!”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter HERE.

Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter HERE.

Share This