LAS VEGAS — Walking into Mix, Alain Ducasse’s stunning new restaurant is like walking into a glass of Champagne. Thousands of fragile Venetian glass bubbles dangle from the high ceiling. The effect of that half-a-million-dollar "chandelier" is sheer magic that makes you want to dance across the stenciled glass floor.

Every table at this restaurant in the sky has a view from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Sixty-four floors above the Strip, at the top of THE Hotel (the deluxe new hotel in Mandalay Bay), it feels as if you’re flying like Wendy and Peter Pan right over those blocks of brilliant neon. The truly lucky might snag one of the handful of tables out on the balcony with its heart-stopping view or a romantic table for two enclosed in a cocoon lined in silver leaf.

Las Vegas has always been well over the top, but with the opening of Mix from six-star Ducasse (three for his eponymous Paris restaurant, three for the one in Monte Carlo) and the power lineup of high-end restaurants in Steve Wynn’s new casino, Wynn Las Vegas, dining in Vegas has reached an opulence that stands out even in this city of ridiculous excess.

With $75 corkage fees, caviar supplements in the three digits, fresh fish flown in from the Mediterranean and priced, like rare cheese, by the 100 grams, and water, water everywhere, Vegas ushers in its latest wave of restaurants.

Add gluttony to the many ways it’s possible to sin in Sin City.

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But it isn’t just about glitz anymore. Vegas has grown up, culinarily speaking, and though you’ll find enough foie gras, lobster and truffles to make everybody feel like king or queen for a day, the best new chefs are dazzling diners with subtle cooking and compelling ideas.

At the heart of the much-ballyhooed Wynn Las Vegas, Wynn has built a mountain covered with pine trees, complete with dramatic waterfalls gushing over rocks and down its sides. You can see them from various parts of the resort, but the Japanese restaurant Okada looks onto two of them. The main dining room is open to the water and you can almost feel its spray. One lone table floats on a raft moored at the base of a waterfall. Impossibly romantic, it costs $1,200 for "omakase" (chef’s choice) there whether you’re six or just two.

This high-end Japanese restaurant from Takashi Yagihashi, formerly of Tribute in Detroit, also includes a "teppan" room (think haute Benihana), a small, exclusive sushi bar and a "robatayaki" counter, none of which will set you back quite as much. The night I was there, the immaculately attired chef solemnly watched two young cooks-in-training go through their paces at the "robatayaki" station, grilling shiitake mushrooms, shrimp and other ingredients threaded onto skewers over hardwood charcoal. Razor clams and Copper River salmon were the specials that night, and terrific, but the staff still seems a bit tentative. This is a great spot for a quick, albeit expensive, bite. I’d go for the sushi or the "robata" over the more ambitious Asian fusion items.

The very grandest restaurant at Wynn is Alex from Alex Stratta, last seen at Renoir in the Mirage. Although I liked Stratta’s food at Renoir, I couldn’t stand the stuffy, over-decorated room. It was like eating in a hatbox in the middle of the casino. Here, he’s been given an imposing dining room well away from the gaming tables, with tall windows looking onto well-groomed shrubs (real) and glints of actual sky.

Guests make their entrance down a grand curved staircase — the elegant, the dowdy and the glitzed-out Vegas trollops. We’re all here together, dining on French food in a room where Diamond Jim Brady would have been happy unfurling his linen napkin. And if you were wondering, those encrustations on the massive drapes are fabric roses. The service is smooth and professional so that dining here is a distinct pleasure.

If you’re in the mood for something French and contemporary rather than a more traditional bistro or brasserie kind of thing, this is the place. We opted for the prix fixe three-course menu for $110, which offers a number of choices for each course. If you want caviar though, it will be a $225 supplement.

Our meal began with four classic canapes, then a subtly delicious chilled artichoke soup garnished with prawn and shaved radishes. First courses were impeccably executed: asparagus wrapped in crepe and embellished with gorgeous morel mushrooms and asparagus tips and crispy frog legs with ricotta gnocchi and porcini. As a second course, Stratta did a roasted veal with chanterelles and dainty foie gras tart and a stuffed rabbit with green lentils. For a final course, choose the cheese over the sweets.

One of Chicago’s — and the country’s — top Italian chefs, Paul Bartolotta of Spiaggia in Chicago, has an Italian seafood restaurant at Wynn called Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare. The design is a bit overdone — what are those big Ali Baba jars doing along the staircase? — and includes its own little pond or lake bobbing with mirrored balls and surrounded by striped cabanas like you’d find at a seaside resort in Italy. Never mind, it’s the food that counts here. I’d drop in just for a bowl of his soulful pasta "fagioli" made with white beans and "tubetti" (tube pasta). Sheep’s milk ricotta ravioli, simply sauced with butter and sage, are outstanding, but "plin" (Piedmontese-style "agnolotti") need more supple dough.

Before you order, the effusive Italian waiter will present the whole fresh fish flown in from the Mediterranean that day for you to choose. Priced by the 100 grams, they’re worth every penny for rouget, gilt head bream or orata, for example, which is what I had. Grilled and deboned at the table, this is as good as it gets this far from the Mediterranean. And the chef has the sense to serve the grilled fish simply with a good herb-infused olive oil.

Daniel Boulud of Daniel in New York got a primo location for his brasserie at Wynn, right in front of the casino’s mysterious "water feature," a shallow lake with water coursing down a stone screen at the far end. At dusk, images are projected onto and through the water, creating the illusion that the observer is almost inside the swirling images. It’s entertaining, kind of like a giant lava lamp. Naturally, except when the temperatures soar, everybody wants to sit outside on the terrace, where you can see the show close up. Boulud has put together a smart brasserie menu with his famous burger center stage — the same one that set off a stampede in New York. Believe me, $29 seems like a bargain for this sumptuous, over-the-top burger stuffed with braised short ribs, foie gras and black truffles. He’s got the lavish chilled seafood platters too.

But the real thrill here is the house-made charcuterie, notably the rustic "pate de campagne," which has a fine livery funk, and the pork, rabbit and foie gras "rillettes," which comes in a petite crock with a pile of cornichons, puckery pickled ramps, and excellent sourdough toast. I also liked the artichokes "barigoule" braised in a fragrant green herb sauce.

Unusually enough, the main courses outshine the firsts. There’s a crackling crisp duck confit with divine mashed potatoes, beautiful braised beef short ribs bourguignon — possibly the best I’ve ever had — topped with shaved carrots, snap peas and pearl onions and served with what looks like mashed avocado but turns out to be potatoes mashed with ramps. I’m leery of the steak frites when I read that the steak is a filet mignon. Why not an onglet or hanger steak? But this is a gorgeous piece of beef, deeply flavored, and comes with perfect gold fries.

The star of the evening, though, is a lovely "gateau Saint-Honore" decorated with tiny cream puffs, each topped with a burnt caramel hat and filled with a haunting caramel cream. It is so very French.

At Mix, Ducasse could phone in the menu and people would still come, given the Mandalay Bay restaurant’s spectacular setting. Mix is seriously good, but it’s not a three-star restaurant. It’s something more suited to Vegas: casual French mixed with a soupcon of Asian influences. You could start with a Thai beef salad with a fierce note of chile served in a silver three-legged bowl, or a lush combination of deep-fried and raw artichokes paired with a bar of cold chicken sandwiched with foie gras.

Follow with Ducasse’s signature lobster in red curry laced with coconut milk, the farm chicken served with couscous embellished with candied citrus, or the pork en cocotte served from a red enamel saucepan.

Service is top notch and the relaxed, knowledgeable sommelier can be truly helpful. Wine prices are steep, however, and if you want to bring your own bottle, corkage is a gasp-inducing $75 per bottle. (Most of the other restaurants mentioned have a $35 corkage policy.)

Don’t leave without ordering the baba Monte Carlo, which arrives split neatly in half. You get to choose one of three heady rums, which the waiter pours on top until the tender, yeasty cake soaks up every drop. Garnish with softly whipped cream. It’s a dream, 64 stories up.