Episode 2 – Diva Las Vegas!
(Air date: 3/30/22)
Kim and Jackie at the Vegas premier of the Show in April 2022.
Jackie’s family loves the Japanese restaurant chain, Benihana, and wants a customized version to serve as Versailles’ commercial-grade kitchen, featuring a large teppanyaki grill. While previous teams began installation of this kitchen plan years ago, it remains almost entirely unfinished, with just some basic interior architecture completed. The Siegel family will spend much of their time in the smaller, more intimate morning kitchen, so it’s Kim’s priority to get it finished asap. Because Jackie has a penchant for gold, the morning kitchen, like all of Versailles, will be accented with gold leaf, which Kim must utilize as she considers ideas for complimentary colors and features. Jackie intends to have a speakeasy-style secret door from the morning kitchen directly into the British Pub, which features a bar from 19th -century England, a palatial gold fireplace, wood parquet flooring, gaming tables and other indulgences.
Taking inspiration from the hand-carved wood panels beneath the bar, Kim designed beautiful complimentary embellishments for the room’s wainscoting, and, nodding to European tradition and guest convenience, mounted drink rails along every wall. To give the room a rich, traditional look and feel, Kim installed luxurious embossed leather wall coverings from Barbarossa Leather.
Back in the morning kitchen, Kim oversees the installation of the floor’s heating system to make sure it won’t damage the exquisite hand-cut Italian marble flooring. Kim must also discuss with the architect serious problems with the commercial kitchen’s proposed teppanyaki grill, which will produce annoying cooking odors and exhaust fan noise. Because Kim and the architect both have extensive restaurant design/build experience, they vow to put their heads together to come up with a solution to the previous crews’ disastrous blueprint.
Jackie returns from her trip to Vegas to experience the beauty and comfort of the morning kitchen’s glorious floor. One major endeavor completed! However, with nine months until New Year’s Eve, of course the question of Jackie’s ambitious deadline begs the question, “When is this project going to be done?” Laughs Kim, “Well…do I have to answer that?”
