WAKUDA

WAKUDA opened on 25 June 2022 in the Palazzo lobby of The Venetian Resort, the first American restaurant from Tetsuya Wakuda, the two-Michelin-starred chef behind Waku Ghin in Singapore. It was built with 50 Eggs Hospitality, and the concept traces back to a 2016 trip its founder John Kunkel took to Tokyo and a late night in Shinjuku Golden Gai, the warren of tiny bars that gives the restaurant's own cocktail lounge its name. The finished room seats 264 and is really several rooms: a main dining space, a private dining room, a bar and lounge, a private sushi room, a secret bar, and an outdoor terrace. The kitchen runs omakase, sushi and a late-night menu built on seafood flown in from around the world, and Las Vegas Review-Journal readers named it the 2025 Gold winner for Best Sushi.

The reason it belongs in a non-alcoholic directory is that the bar treats zero-proof as a category to build in rather than a request to accommodate. Its non-alcoholic drinks are constructed on Lyre's non-alcoholic spirits and pull from the same tropical and Japanese vocabulary as the rest of the list. The Matcha Colada is built from Lyre's spiced sugar cane, ceremonial matcha, pineapple, lime and coconut; the Hosaka Fever from Lyre's spiced sugar cane, pineapple, green tea and lime; Geisha's Garden from lychee, butterfly pea tea agave, lime and Fever-Tree club soda; and a fourth, Cure, rounds out the section. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority's own guide to must-try mocktails in the city singles out the Hosaka Fever specifically. Attached to the restaurant is the Golden Gai Cocktail Club, the Shinjuku-inspired lounge serving handcrafted drinks and Michelin-quality bites, which means a guest who is not drinking can spend an evening here in the bar rather than only at a dinner table. Service runs daily from 5pm to 10pm.