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Quarantine karaoke Right on time, Kamu brings a luxurious new experience to the Strip By Brock Radke
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f you set out to build the perfect nightclub experience customized for the COVID-19 era, you’d probably start by shrinking the space. Sprawling dancefloors and gatherings of thousands of party people are bad ideas right now and currently banned in Las Vegas. But this new blueprint could offer private rooms for small groups to party together—microclubs each with their own bars and restroom facilities. Maybe you could even control the music and lights in your posse’s private party, and the only outside contact would come from a masked server delivering food and drinks. Vegas clubs aren’t going to rebuild their venues
to create this altered experience, but locals and visitors will be able to party this way on the Strip, thanks to this week’s arrival of Kamu Ultra Karaoke at the Grand Canal Shoppes. The 17,000-square-foot venue was set to open July 2 in the northeast corner of the Venetian’s mall (on the Palazzo side) near SushiSamba. Kamu offers 40 upscale karaoke rooms ranging in size, with the biggest suite—decorated in decadent Roman Empire style—accommodating 50 people. Other rooms have Egyptian and neon Vegas motifs and sound-activated lighting systems, so the special effects can be choreographed to guests’ musical choices and singing performances.
Veteran Las Vegas chef Marty Lopez has created a menu stocked with lobster rolls, flatbreads, snacks like sliders, bao buns and egg rolls and entrees like Korean fried chicken, spicy ramen and a 40-ounce tomahawk steak. Craft cocktails, beer, wine and bottle service complete the luxury fullservice approach, but even though Kamu might look, feel and act like a Vegas nightclub, that’s only one aspect of the experience. “We’re not trying to compete with Tao or XS. When they open up again, they’re going to be crushing it,” says partner and general manager Jeffrey Kim, who has operated a popular karaoke spot in LA’s Koreatown for 12 years. “We are our own
