Bonjour, Las Vegas!

And, he says, Caesars Palace made him an offer he couldn't refuse: Anything he needed to replicate his Paris flagship. A huge, sparkling brand-new kitchen, much larger than what he has in Paris. A room for his own \o7boulanger\f7 in the hotel's bread bakery. An elegant high-ceilinged dining room designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the same architect who designed Restaurant Guy Savoy Paris. A world-class wine cellar, with 90% French bottles. Sixty kitchen and dining room employees to serve 75 diners for dinner five nights a week. (In the Paris restaurant 50 employees serve 60 diners, working double-shifts to serve both dinner and lunch.) Plus he gets a chef's table off the kitchen -- no room for that in Paris. Need more storage? You got it.

And the greatest surprise? That they had no problem with the limited number of diners he would serve. "If I wanted to make money in the U.S.," Savoy says, "I would have opened a brasserie with 600 covers. Of course, we're doing a business here, but the notion of profitability was completely forgotten."

For a chef, that can be irresistible. "Who else today on the planet," Savoy asks, "can give me any means possible to do my job?" Add to that American enthusiasm and a work ethic that couldn't be more different than what he finds at home.

"In France," Savoy explains, "the idea is that working is stupid. You're taken for an idiot if you work.... I'm not an intellectual. I just have my CAP [a basic trade school diploma for cooking, \o7certificat d'aptitude professionnele\f7\o7]\f7, a \o7cuistot \f7[a cook]. It's because of work that I know so much."

On Sunday afternoon, the staff was set to perform another training lunch, this time in costume.

Down in the bowels of the hotel, the \o7boulanger \f7Virginie Bulliner, an American who spent three years working for Thomas Keller (at Per Se, Bouchon and French Laundry) was putting the finishing touches on a brioche layered with olive paste, destined to be a snack at the Champagne bar. Savoy came in and picked up a \o7pain epi\f7. "It looks a little too done, no?" he said.

"You like it crispy, chef," Bulliner reminded him. He gave it a squeeze. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it's good." He squeezed two or three other loaves -- a spiky chestnut bread, a nine-grain -- and seemed more than satisfied.

Franck had been impressed with her work at Per Se, Savoy explained.

"When she first came," said Soliveres, "I told her it's very, very good, your bread. Tears came to her eyes."