in case you haven't heard, the cosmopolitan is cool.

On Level 3 of The Cosmopolitan, just past the unbelievable presence of a go-ahead-and-play billiards table, hanging on the wall near the Blue Ribbon restaurant, there are some nifty Rat Pack portraits, flashbacks of Frank, Dean and Sammy hanging with pretty girls and being cool. I was looking at them and I wondered: Is The Cosmopolitan the kinda place these guys would hang at? I'm sure these pictures are here to make me think the answer is "yes," to make me believe the last, latest Strip casino-hotel truly does contain the right amount of wrong, to make me imagine the Chairman would be happy to meet for a cocktail in the Vesper Bar just off the lobby. A lot of money has been spent to construct a thick layer of cool around this place, and I don't know how I feel about that, and I don't know if the Rat Pack would have kicked it here. I've never been very cool, but it doesn't take a cool person to recognize when someone or something is trying too hard. The people who assemble and tweak the concept of The Cosmopolitan, under unimaginable, unrealistic pressure to succeed, are trying very hard to make it cool.

And that's why it's so impressive that they seem to be succeeding.

Cool is in the details. It's in the crazy, mind-altering video columns in the lobby, ever-changing installations that make you feel like you stepped into a futuristic movie. It's in the subterranean parking garage, where murals by rebel artists like Shinique Smith, Shepard Fairey and Kenny Scharf confuse regular people who don't use valet. It's in those pool tables and ping pong tables and foosball tables and flatscreens up on Level 4, which is the most laidback casino swimming pool I've ever seen and the only spot with Strip-front cabanas. And cool is definitely in that not-so-secret pizza joint on glorious Level 3, squished between Blue Ribbon and Jaleo, with no signs pointing you in and no signs telling you where or how to order a slice. And damn, it is a tasty slice. From where do these guys order their pepperoni? It's spicy and garlicky and wonderful, and I was trying so hard not to buy into the hype of a hidden New York-style pizza den in a fancy casino. But it tastes so good.

I already wrote about it, but allow me to distill the message here: The Cosmopolitan had to go out on a limb, had to be different in order to survive. It is aiming for a specific audience, one other Vegas venues are targeting, and a big, big part of capturing this audience is crazy good food. The restaurant experience is the new Vegas entertainment, and that means making food and service and atmosphere something visitors are going to rave about on the plane or car ride home. While I have only sampled the most accessible, most casual Cosmo eateries (so far), it's safe to say this place is doing just that: providing delicious in a very cool way.

Among the munchies on Level 2 are Holsteins, a burger joint created by the company behind LBS in the Red Rock Resort, and China Poblano, an eclectic Chinese-Mexican concept from the famed José Andrés. At Holsteins I ate duck fat fries and blue cheese kettle potato chips, an outstanding Japanese-themed burger, and sampled a housemade mini-sausage -- longanisa on white bread with borracho beans, cheese and fried pork skin sprinklings. The flavors were impressive, and it is difficult for a burger joint to stand out among its brethren on the Strip. Holsteins seems like it will. At China Poblano ... I ate everything. I couldn't stop eating everything. Tacos of freshly made tortillas stuffed with carnitas, then spicier barbecued pork, then perfectly sweet lobster, then beef tendon with oyster. A deep, rich, red posole with chunks of fatty, tender pork and avocado and chicharrones to drop on top. Another great soup, called Ten Treasure, with shrimp, bok choy, tofu and more in a clean, light broth. A tiny braised pork gordita, rich and corny and properly greasy. Savory, crispy lamb potstickers. I know this is making you hungry for Chinese and Mexican food at the same time, and now you can get it, on the Las Vegas Strip.

Of course, more exploration will come. We must try Andrés' tapas and paella haven, Jaleo. We must try both of Scott Conant's spots, Scarpetta and DOCG. We must eat French at Comme Ça and sushi at Blue Ribbon, and eventually we will make it to the priciest and probably least accessible restaurant here, Estiatorio Milos. And in between, there likely will be many more slices of secret pizza. When it comes to food, cool shouldn't be much of a factor. But it is. It's tough not to get caught up in the cool of The Cosmopolitan, but it's easy to appreciate how tasty it is.

the definitive vegas pizza.

One of my earliest Vegas food memories is munching on two slices of New York-style Verrazano Pizza, a tiny shop on North Rainbow Boulevard. It's pretty straight-ahead pizza, wide slices of cheesy, thin-crust goodness. The place was mostly oven, always hot as hell with a frequently broken soda machine, but located conveniently within a quick bike ride for an 11-year-old trying hard to get acclimated to desert life. There had been plenty of pizza before Verrazano, and even more after, but that slice was genre-defining. So it goes with childhood, no?

The original pizzerias of Las Vegas were all from New York. There were three: Villa Pizza started in 1976, Verrazano in 1978, and Metro Pizza in 1980. All three grew into multiple locations around the valley, some of which are still operating today, and many more similar and different pizza shops soon followed. For Carmine Vento, the man behind Villa, selling pizza by the slice turned into a mammoth operation, a national franchise he sold in 2000. Vento still works in the restaurant biz in Vegas, licensing his brand to some and operating others (Carmine's Pizza Kitchen). Verrazano is still around in various forms, perhaps adrift in a sea of pizzerias pitching the ubiquitous New York slice. And of course, we've got a new breed of pie in Vegas, gourmet coal-fired pizzas and certified Neapolitan pizzas and all kinds of stuff. I've been eating them. They're all delicious.

But if there's a pizza shop that is truly Vegas' own, it has to be Metro. It's not because this is the best in town, though it certainly needs to be part of that conversation. Metro Pizza is simply tied to this city in a way very few restaurants are, linked to the families and people who work and grow up in Las Vegas, connected to a community and culture that so many claim doesn't exist. I remember trips to Metro's Flamingo-Decatur location, in all its 1980s, teal-pink-and-checkerboard glory. This is the oldest of its five local stores now. This was special occasion pizza when I was in middle school, when delivery from Domino's or Pizza Hut just wouldn't cut it.

But others have deeper, stronger connections. "Vegas was still small in 1980. Back then kids would ride horses to our first shop at Flamingo and Sandhill." Riding horses to pizza! You never thought that would happen in Las Vegas, did you? John Arena, co-owner, co-founder and overall pizza guy, has so many stories like this. "We changed that crazy decor at the Flamingo-Decatur store a while back, but people didn't recognize it anymore. They thought there was a new owner. So we changed it back. We have customers that came to us when they were in high school in 1980, and they're coming in with grandkids now. It's a very unique responsibility, to be here for multiple generations, and to live up to those expectations. If you ate this pizza as a kid, you're expecting a certain level of quality and service when you come back as an adult."

If you haven't figured it out yet, these people keep coming back for reasons other than nostalgia. The love of longtime Las Vegans, though powerful, is not what makes Metro undeniable. It could be that they put bacon on their Hawaiian pizza, or the eggplant calzone that's named after George Steinbrenner, or the fact that one slice of the Skyline stuffed pizza with sausage, onions, peppers, pepperoni, black olives and mushrooms is enough for two tasty meals. But it's not any of those reasons.

Arena, from Brooklyn, loves pizza, and he understands why and how everyone else loves it, too. He's traveled the world learning as much about this perfect food as he can, and he teaches a class about its history at UNLV. "In Las Vegas, you have customers from all over the country, all over the world, and they're not tourists. That's who lives here. You've got all these different people, and all these different opinions about pizza. I call it the Cognitive Theory of Pizza - what you're given as a child shapes your vision. People will say only pizza from Naples is true pizza, but the people of Rome would disagree. Purists say pizza shouldn't have to adapt, but there's a long tradition in Italian food of just that. We realized you could have endless debates depending on the current circumstances of pizza, so what we decided to do is embrace it all and find some common ground. We changed our name to Metro Pizza in 1986 to reflect that philosophy, and try to reflect the great pizzas of many different metropolitan areas, because in Las Vegas, everybody is from somewhere else." Could anything possibly make more sense? So when you order a Modesto or a New Haven off this menu, that's because Arena found something like that in that city, and he thinks you'd like a taste. At the Metro store on Tropicana near UNLV, there's a big map of the Pizza Hall of Fame, different cities with famous pizzerias marked. If you go eat at one of them, and then come back and talk about it, Metro will hook you up. Arena wants you to eat other pizza. He wants to teach you to make your own pizza. And yet you likely will return to eat his pizza. (It's good.)

"When you're putting a pizza on the table, you're not just competing with other pizza places, you're competing with all those childhood memories and all those associations. When it comes to pizza, there's a lot more going on that what's on the plate." I tell Arena about my associations, my slices of Verrazano, and how the mayor of Las Vegas once told me he couldn't find anything close to his back-home stuff so he called Metro and asked them to figure out how he could eat Philly pizza in Vegas. "His favorite pizzeria back home was using a very particular cheese blend, and that was his touchstone pizza. It's just like you, riding your bike to Verrazano. You probably got your first taste of personal freedom along with that pizza. It's the same way everyone's grandma makes the best food they ever had in their life. That's how people feel about pizza, and that's the responsibility I have ... to live up to all of that." I'm glad this pizza guy is taking his responsibilities seriously.

lunching at enoteca san marco.

Update: The restaurant has changed it's name to Enoteca Otto.

Enoteca San Marco is the most approachable of superchef Mario Batali's three Vegas offerings. The newest, Carnevino, is a pricey Italian steakhouse in Palazzo, and the nicest, B&B, is the Vegas version of Batali's acclaimed NY spot Babbo, serving complex yet authentic cuisine from Venetian's casino-level restaurant row. ESM, just upstairs in the faux piazza of Venetian's Grand Canal Shoppes, offers that new Vegas classic of indoor alfresco dining. From this "patio," it's hard to ignore the European street performers, which could be good or bad for your dining experience. You could always seek refuge in the small but classy dining room.

The setting is perfect for the menu, which is designed to allow you to dabble in different wines (100 bottles under a hundred bucks), house-cured meats, imported Italian cheeses and interesting antipasti. You could spend forever on the cheeses, which are priced well for sampling at three for $14, five for $17, or seven for $21. Most of this artisanal formaggi won't be found elsewhere, so have fun tasting six-month old asiago or a two-year old parmagiano reggiano.

Perhaps due to the winter temperatures and hearty appetites they can create, we took the heavy road of pizza and pasta. Enoteca San Marco boasts an expansive selection of both, and a special pizza, pasta and salad option for every day of the week. On this Friday, the pasta of the day was linguine with veal bolognese, tasty enough, and the pizza of the day was a carbonara pie. After much debate, we chose pizza with chunks of pancetta, caramelized onions, tomato and Coach Farm goat cheese (pictured). The crust was thin and chewy, the tomato sauce was surprisingly sweet, but the ultra-creamy cheese took charge masterfully. Next time I'll go for the pizza Vongole, with mozzarella, clams and chili. For my filling entree, I devoured a plate of cavatappi pasta, perfectly al dente hollowed corkscrews, smothered in a rich lamb ragu with just enough mint to make things interesting (also pictured).

It's hard to order at Enoteca San Marco because everything appears so simple and appetizing. The menu is perfectly planned. It is the best place to munch bread, cheese and salami with loads of wine, and the Italian basics of salad, pizza and pasta are individually and artfully composed. And there's meat, too ... dinner options include grilled pork chop, braised pork shoulder with apple reduction, crispy duck, veal and ricotta meatballs, and the Tuscan fish stew Cacciuco. So the lesson is ... careful about which celebrity chefs you hate on, because some of them are really killing it.

pizzathon.

Note: An edited version of this post appears in Las Vegas Weekly.

DAY ONE: IT BEGINS

We can do this. It’ll be a breeze. Technically, we’ve done it before. I worked at a Godfather’s in Reno during the college days. For an entire summer, I made the wrong pizza just before my kitchen shift was over. Oops, guess I have to take that one home. And Maria’s father is crazy. He once put the entire family on an all-pizza diet and used it as an excuse to perfect his homemade recipes. After two months of pizza she was relieved to eat other things, but her dad still craved it as much on day 60 as he did on day one. Suffice to say, we love pizza, at least as much if not more than the general population. The fact that we refuse to eat Pizza Hut, Domino's, etc., is reason enough for me to believe we love it more than the average American. So here we are, enjoying some great pizza at Streets of New York in northwest Vegas, deciding this is the beginning of a week-long pizzathon. For seven days our only meals will be pizza, and we will enjoy every melty, spicy bite. This is a good place to start, because not only is the crust crispy and delicious and the tomato sauce slightly sweet, but we’re washing these two pizzas down with huge, frosty Shock Top Belgian White brews. Draft beer with pizza is an important factor. I'd say you can't have a proper pizza parlor without it, and you need to be able to order it by the pitcher. It may be a chain operation, but Streets of New York obviously respects the beer and an old fashioned experience. Plus, it's located in the Village of Centennial Springs, a near-empty retail walk built to look like Main Street USA, so the nostalgia cometh.

But the pizza is the important thing and this place does it right. There are some weird toppings to choose from, and plenty of other goodies on the menu like sandwiches, salads and calzone. If you're looking for a classic pizza experience in Vegas, I'd say there's good old Metro Pizza and then there are these guys ... flat-out good food.

DAY TWO: TACO PIZZA?
This Sunday morning finds me working in my brother’s backyard, shoveling rocks to augment his landscaping. It sucks, but luckily there’s fuel: leftover pizza in his fridge. I inhale a couple pieces, still cold. The cheese and sauce has congealed into spongy mush. It's gone before I think to ask where he got it from: Rosati's.

Diversification is going to keep this thing rolling. It can’t be all pepperoni. Enter the taco pizza, one of Maria’s favorites. She’s a longtime fan of this oddball delight, thanks to her Midwestern roots and a place called Happy Joe’s. This place actually serves a variety of Mexican pizzas, but the Taco Joe has a sauce of marinara mixed with refried beans, taco seasoned beef, sausage and white and yellow cheese, and then after the oven, shredded lettuce, tomato and crumbled tortilla chips. Our Vegas version is from Red Rock Pizza, which also boasts a variety of specialty pies. Its Taco Nacho pizza has seasoned ground beef, jalapenos, tomatoes, crunchy corn chips and two cheeses, so Maria says it’s close to home. “Interestingly, the tomatoes and lettuce are cooked on the pizza, under the cheese. I imagined this would be a huge mistake, but somehow it’s not,” she says. It’s seriously heavy, too, leaving plenty of leftovers for dinner. “It re-warms magnificently,” she says, and I agree. “After a few minutes in the oven it was fully restored to its tasty glory.”

DAY THREE: DOWNTOWN, THEN DEEP DISH
I work downtown. I have a few minutes for lunch and a five-dollar bill. That’s the exact cost of two slices of cheese and a can of Coke at Uncle Joe’s on Fremont Street. The paper plate isn’t big enough to accommodate these thin, greasy-in-a-good-way, New York-style beauties. A dash of crushed red pepper and they’ve disappeared.

Later, an impromptu celebration with friends is the perfect excuse to order way too much pizza. Rosati’s takes a while but eventually delivers a Chicago-style veggie and two thin-crust pies cut into square pieces (one pepperoni, green pepper and black olive, one Bianco with olive oil, tomato, garlic and spinach). The deep-dish is a beast and draws comparisons to lasagna from the uninitiated. The thick crust is filled with mushrooms, onions, green peppers and tomatoes, then covered in mozzarella and topped with pomodoro tomatoes. It’s got to weigh at least five pounds and I can barely take down a whole slice. I don't know how I feel about this Chicago business ... Maria loves it but I have a hard time comparing it to New York-style or Neapolitan-style pizza. It really is a different breed, one that hurts for a few days.

DAY FOUR: LEFTOVERS
Pizza is the best kind of leftovers. I know this for a few reasons, including: It’s great cold and it’s great reheated. (But only in the oven. The microwave is powerless here.) More importantly, it’s the only leftover Maria willingly consumes. This is ridiculous. Even if I bring home half a $50 steak, I have to cook it into something new to trick her into eating. But not pizza. Straight out of the fridge is just fine. So today is spent picking and munching at various pieces from the previous night’s feast. The deep dish holds up better the next day. “I’ll tell you why,” she says. “Because the little pizzas have to go in the oven to make them crispy and good again, but the big pizza is delicious even from the microwave.” Blasphemous.

But when dinnertime rolls around, I’m craving something fresh, so I stop at a tiny takeout joint on the way home and order the first thing that catches my eye. It’s got plenty of mozzarella and cheddar cheese, pepperoni and sausage, but it’s too ordinary and the white garlic sauce is … off. “It tastes tangy and weird,” Maria says. Still, I ate the whole thing. Maybe this is my second wind.

DAY FIVE: FROZEN IN TIME
We still have enough leftovers for breakfast and lunch, but by the afternoon we’re in need of something new. An attempt at frugality leads to the frozen section at Whole Foods. We leave with two Frontera brand pizzas, one roasted vegetable, Monterey jack cheese and poblano, the other a four cheese blend with tomato and cilantro. They crisp up nicely, but there’s no trace of poblano, cilantro or anything that tastes remotely fresh or Mexican. It’s still frozen pizza. We’re not sure if we should be mad at super chef Rick Bayless or not for these bland creations.

DAY SIX: LOST
I think I’m hitting the pizza wall. Everything is starting to blur together. Another couple of cold slices for breakfast, another couple of greasy, cheesy slices at noon. Maria switches it up with a pizza Hot Pocket for lunch. “The little cardboard thing didn’t really crunch it up, but I was really hungry,” she says. I stop at Albertson’s on the way home from work and the supermarket has never been more confusing. In the frozen aisle, some weirdo talks to me: “Wow, Freschetta for $4.99, that’s off the chain, huh?” I want to punch him. I end up at home baking a California Pizza Kitchen “Sicilian” thing and piling some microwaved barbecue brisket on top. This is going bad, real fast.

DAY SEVEN: FINISHING STRONG

I’m having problems, but Maria seems relatively unfazed. I’m hungry, but I can only eat pizza. No matter how creative we get, it’s still pizza. And I’ve learned that great pizza can be as satisfying as any gourmet meal, while bad pizza is truly terrible. So to wrap it up, we’re going to a sure-fire winner, Grimaldi’s in Henderson. I keep it simple with extra mozzarella and meatball, and like she always does, Maria out-orders me with pesto, tomato and roasted red pepper perfection (pictured). The sweet peppers with Grimaldi’s signature homemade mozzarella are pure bliss. I've written it before but it rings true every time I'm out in Henderson ... this is the pizza capital of the valley. Grimaldi's may not do true Italian the way Settebello does, and the crust may not be perfect every time, but it's so close. And the cheese is so unique and fresh, it almost makes a Summerlin dweller wanna move across town.

Thanks to reliably great pizza, we are rejuvenated. We could keep this marathon going if we wanted to, just as long as we stick to certain spots ... and stay out of the frozen food section.

balboa pizza company.

Update: Pie Town Pizza has closed.

The best pizza in Las Vegas is actually in Henderson.

Though the Review-Journal's annual readers' poll typically results in a Vegas mainstay like Metro Pizza getting the honors, Settebello is the obvious choice. But it's not the only great pie in the city of Henderson. While I tend to believe Henderson is a little behind some of our other suburban communities when it comes to great food in the neighborhood, Vegas pizzerias have some catching up to do. Grimaldi's on Eastern is great. Pie Town on Green Valley Parkway allegedly has the best Chicago deep dish around. And while it's hard not to hit Settebello if you're in the vicinity of The District at Green Valley Ranch, it has another completely respectable joint in Balboa Pizza Company.

The District, that walking-and-shopping destination connected to the Green Valley Ranch Resort, seems to be dying with the rest of the retail world. That's not good news for the mostly franchised restaurant options here, and Balboa always has been kinda sleepy. But it does boast an easygoing surf shack vibe, a small but comfortable patio and an adequate bar. Most everything on the newspaper-print menu is tasty. Pizza here is thin crust and individually sized, but one pizza is the perfect size for sharing, especially if you're augmenting your meal with some of the best chicken wings in town: Big, meaty, slightly crispy on the outside and available in some fun flavors like Thai Peanut and Hawaiian BBQ. Pizza toppings are pretty standard but also reflect some California Cuisine weirdness -- barbecue chicken, roasted vegetables, etc. The Tostada pizza has ground beef and sausage, pico de gallo, refried beans, guacamole and cilantro. There's also the Wedge pizza, more or less a calzone.

In simple straight-up pizza comparisons, Balboa's reminds me a lot of the thin crust from Rosati's Pizza, an Illinois-based franchise that has taken hold in Vegas over the last year and was the staff pick in the previously mentioned Best of Las Vegas poll in 2009. Crust is important, and it seems more and more local pizzerias are discovering that crispy/chewy balance.

settebello = best pie.

You could make a case, without even tasting it, that Settebello makes the best pizza in Las Vegas. It is, after all, the only restaurant in Nevada to be officially certified by the Vera Pizza Napoletana, a real organization with the sole purpose of protecting the integrity and origins of pizza-making as it began in Naples a long, long time ago. Certified eateries have to use specific ingredients to make the dough, which also must be worked only with the hands and cooked directly on the surface of a bell-shaped oven fueled only by wood. Only certain toppings are acceptable, too.

Sure, you can make that case, but all that stuff wouldn't mean much if the pizza wasn't absolutely delicious: A thin, crisp and chewy crust with a flavor profile of its own, topped in minimalist fashion with crushed tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, parmigiano reggiano and extra virgin olive oil, served unsliced, and torn up and devoured by you, someone who simply cannot stop eating it once you get a taste.

And that's just the margherita, the original, traditional pizza. Add your own toppings to that template, including peppered salami, Italian bacon, olive, pine nuts, arugola or roasted bell peppers. Not too many though; you don't want to overwhelm perfection. Or go the spicy route with the Diavola (crushed tomatoes, salami, roasted red peppers and crushed red peppers, garlic, mozzarella). Or sample a little of everything with the Quattro Stagioni, a pie divided into four sections topped separately with wood oven roasted sausage, salami, roasted mushrooms and calamata olives.

Settebello is the best because it's so different from Vegas pizza. It's truly in a class of its own.
Heed this warning from the menu: "A note about take-out: Pizza in the U.S. has become synonymous with take out and delivery. In Italy pizza is enjoyed directly out of the oven in a pizzeria, not from a box. We strongly recommend (especially if you have never experienced our pizza) that our pizza be eaten in our pizzeria immediately after coming out of the oven." And since they're plating your pizza straight from that fancy oven, we suggest you take their word for it.