A model in an origami dress of good-luck origami paper cranes also starred at the ribbon cutting at the Nobu Hotel and restaurant at Caesars Palace Vegas Saturday. That's chef Nobu Matsuhisa with the samurai sword, business partner Robert De Niro and Caesars Palace President Gary Selesner with the microphone.(Photo: Kitty Bean Yancey, USA TODAY)

LAS VEGAS — The world's first Nobu Hotel, from partners including Japanese celeb chef Nobu Matsuhisa and actor Robert De Niro, is having a trial run this weekend before opening to the public Monday.

It's a 181-room/suite hotel-within-a-hotel at Caesars Palace in the former Centurion Tower, anchored by the largest of more than two dozen Nobu restaurants worldwide.

The idea is to provide "the best of Eastern rigor, with the best of Western comfort," hotel architect and desiger David Rockwell said while leading a tour Saturday afternoon. His Rockwell Group is as A list in its world as De Niro and Matsuhisa are in theirs. His firm has worked on The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, the Hotel Bel-Air revamp, W and Aloft hotels and Andaz Wall Street, just to name a few.

De Niro, in for the day Saturday, told me he thinks of the Nobu Hotel as an "oasis" in party-hearty, sense-overwhelming Vegas.

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Indeed, the rooms are very non-Vegas. They have a Japanese sensibility, emanating Zen tranquility via sleek and simple custom furnishings including beds dressed solely in 350-thread-count white Fili D'oro Italian linens, sleek wooden bench-like bedside tables, chocolate-colored calligraphy-style horizontal brushstrokes on walls behind the beds, beige grass-cloth wallpaper and cream/gray rugs emblazoned with calligraphy designs. Lighting is a contemporary take on Japanese lanterns. There's a teak bench in the shower, and a wooden ladder holding towels. Matsuhisa, De Niro and their longtime partner Meir Teper (who produced the 1992 De Niro film Mistress) all had a hand in the design and picking furnishings.

Rockwell says designers were limited by the existing layouts (350 square feet for a standard king). Behind the clever touches, you can still see the old-style and rather confining set-up of the room (including small closets) that you may have stayed in in the '70s or '80s.

Standard king 8109 at the brand-new Nobu Hotel at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Opening rates started at $249.(Photo: Kitty Bean Yancey, USA TODAY)

While standard rooms have a generous leather sofa and 55-inch flat screen TV, and all non-suite bathrooms I saw boast a big shower (no tubs), polished travertine floors and huge basin sinks, the quarters still are noticeably smaller than, say, the remodeled Bellagio rooms and the condo-like layouts at Trump Las Vegas and Vdara at City Center, just to name three. Super-luxe, Asian-themed Mandarin Oriental has arguably more sumptuous rooms and is running specials now in the $200-double range. Opening rates at Nobu start at $249.

I can't see business travelers or conventioneers working well in Nobu standard rooms (suites still are being completed). No desks or desk chairs in sight. Typing this on the arm of a sofa is not comfortable. But you are an elevator ride away from the casino without a hike, and in a lodging that feels like a cocoon.

Design mavens will want to see Nobu (Architectural Digest was doing a photo shoot Saturday). Lovers of over-the-top Vegas luxury may think rooms too simple.

A big draw here is the restaurant and room service from Matsuhisa, a jovial man who seems to have not let fame (Hollywood loves him) go to his head, unlike some celebrity chefs. "Cooking is my passion ... I like seeing happy faces," he told me.

Stars on the menu at his Nobu Hotel restaurant, officially open to the public starting Monday, are black Alaska cod marinated in soybean paste (a De Niro favorite), creative sushi and sashimi and addictive tempura shrimp with creamy, spicy sauce. Nobu supervises the room-service menu as well. It includes $22 green tea waffles with minty shiso syrup and citrus-y yuzu whipped cream and a super-creative $24 "Bagel and Lox" (seasoned crispy rice stands in for the bagel, the cream cheese is tofu "crema," and the smoked salmon is perfection). Room-service and the minibar are pricey ($16 for an airline-size bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin). Don't even think about a Nobu spa service at Caesars' QUA spa unless you can afford $175 for a 50-minute body scrub or upward for other services.

But the hotel partners are banking on customers who appreciate great food and design and more personalized service and tranquility than found at larger Vegas properties.

De Niro, a fan of design (who knew?), takes inspiration from his world travels and already has one lodging: the well-regarded The Greenwich Hotel in New York City. It features spacious rooms with varying, individually- chosen furnishings that give the impression one is staying at the digs of a wealthy connoisseur. He has been partners with Nobu since eating at the chef's first L.A. restaurant, and they clearly have a great rapport. As for segueing into restaurants and hotels, "I like to try new things," the actor says.

The famously private De Niro won't be at Nobu Hotel glad-handing a la his Casino movie character, he says. "I'll come in and out." Like a script read-through for a new movie, "We'll see what works and what doesn't," he adds calmly. And the team will make tweaks.

Readers, what do you think? Interested in checking out the hotel? For more info and specials, visit the website.