Las Vegas food critic Fedora Bontempi frequently reviewed Le Bistro in her column in Panoramamagazine noting that it was the first and the only authentic French restaurant in Las Vegas.īy late 1969 both Le Bistro and the Club de Paris were failing when Marge Jacques became interested in running the bar. Betty Grable, a Las Vegas resident at the time, often hosted parties at Le Bistro, and the cast of Boys in the Band, performing at Caesars Palace during the summer of 1969, gathered at Le Bistro. When the revue went down, Camille, bankrolled by Riddle, stayed on to open her restaurant.Ĭlub de Paris and Le Bistro held their grand opening on Januand quickly became a favorite hangout for Las Vegas' gay community, particularly the show crowd from the Strip.
Camille was also associated with a celebrated Parisian lesbian bar called the Crazy Horse and she came to Las Vegas from Paris as the lighting engineer when Caesars Palace imported a show called the Crazy Horse Revue. Louis in Paris among whose famous clientele were two well-known Las Vegans: Dunes Hotel owner Major Riddle and Line Renaud, star of the Dunes' Casino de Paris production. Camille had owned La Manche a Gigot restaurant on the Isle St. In November 1968 Camille Castro, a stylish and flamboyant European lesbian, opened Le Bistro French restaurant in the Black Magic, known by then as the Club de Paris.
