Double Down Saloon

On Paradise Road, a couple of blocks off the Strip and a world away from it, a low black building with a name you would not put on a postcard has been Las Vegas's punk rock living room since the early 1990s. The Double Down Saloon is not a themed bar and it is not an ironic one. It is a genuine dive: dark walls covered in stickers and scrawl, a jukebox that runs from garage rock to hardcore, cheap drinks, and a clientele of musicians, bartenders and night-shift workers who are there because the beer is cold and nobody is performing for anybody. Anthony Bourdain, who spent Parts Unknown hunting the version of a city that tourism has not sanded down, walked in and clearly felt at home.

The house shot is the Ass Juice, a cloudy secret-recipe concoction served in a plastic cup; asking what is in it is part of the ritual, and getting an answer is not. The other signature is the Bacon Martini, a stunt of a drink that tastes exactly like its name. Both are jokes that happen to be served in glasses. The honest order is a cold beer, taken slowly, while you take in the ceiling.

The bar is open around the clock, which means it has two personalities. Late at night it belongs to the crowd spilling out of the clubs; in the early afternoon it is a neighbourhood pub where the regulars know each other's names. It is a cash-first kind of place, so bring small bills, and there is no kitchen to speak of — this is a drinking stop, not a meal, and that is the correct way to use it.

What makes the Double Down worth the detour is its honesty. In a city built on performance, it performs nothing. Bourdain's whole argument was that the most interesting food and drink in any city is rarely the most expensive or the most polished, and this bar is that argument in physical form: loud, unpretentious, stubbornly itself, and better company than any rooftop lounge on the Strip.