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Las Vegas WinnerBy Carole KotkinBack in the 1970’s, Las Vegas was a rhinestone cowboy town where Elvis and Sinatra ruled the Strip. Thirty years and a million people later, the world’s premier gambling mecca has transformed itself into a much more interesting place. Those who travel to Las Vegas are doing so less and less for the gambling and more for whole range of activities, including golf, entertainment, shopping, museums, spas and dining. Las Vegas is now the fastest-growing major city in America. In the last 20 years, the population of Las Vegas has jumped from 165,000 to 1.3 million. The growth is reflective of job availability, real-estate opportunities, and the advantages of living in a tax-free state.
Culinary artists are hot—largely because they’ve gotten out of the kitchen. On the TV Food Network, on dozens of websites, and on the top of the best-selling book charts, chefs are proving that they’ve mastered marketing as well as market shopping to become genuine celebrities. And they’re entertainers, at that, in restaurants crafted to be theatrical experiences, a new generation of star chefs is following the success recipes of Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse, expertly balancing artistry and showmanship. Because most of the restaurants are built from the ground up, chefs can have the big kitchens of their dreams, built to their specifications, to back up the dining rooms, with décor that dazzles the eyes. They feel like stage sets, calculated to suggest exotic locales and trigger specific appetites.
Over at the MGM Grand, Chef Michael Mina’s Nobhill presents the best of San Francisco cuisine.JPG9 Inspired by traditional neighborhood restaurants, acclaimed chef Mina combines San Francisco’s most famous, innovative and authentic dishes in one unique menu. Mina was honored by the James Beard Foundation as Best Chef in California for Aqua restaurant in San Francisco, and his Vegas outpost, Nobhill was a finalist for Best New Restaurant of 2002.
“We never opened a Le Cirque anywhere outside of New York,” says Mario Maccioni, the owner’s debonair son who directs the cozy Le Circque in the Bellagio and the well-regarded more casual Circo next door. His father Sirio Maccioni, the founder of the Manhattan Le Cirque, wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. But, after seeing the crowds in front of Spago, he was convinced. He needn’t have worried because Le Cirque has been packed since the day they opened. Their success may be due to the fact that they have brought their star chef, Marc Poidevin, an alumnus of Le Cirque 2000, to reproduce some of the signature dishes from their New York menu. Dishes like sea scallops in black tie, layered with truffles and cooked in puff pastry, are grand; black sea bass in potato crust swims west with flair, and for dessert, “Lucky Dices” are ready to tumble, made with chocolate mousse and praline cream. When asked to describe the style of food, Poidevin boasts, “I’m a Frenchman, so I do classical French with a creative twist. But there are really only two schools of cuisine: the good and the bad.” Osteria del Circo, the casual offspring of Le Cirque, sends out Tuscan vegetable soup, rigatoni Bolognese, pappardelle with braised duck and veal Milanese. “At first, Vegas seemed like a carnival to me, like Disney World for adults. But, I slowly realized that ambitious food makes sense in a town where every temptation is offered. If we keep adding better dining to the playing field, we’ll just keep luring more people who love good food.” Superior ingredients and service introduce a new level of sophistication to the once gaudy Vegas. Menus are laden with lobster, crab, smoked salmon, foie gras, truffles, morels, pounds of caviar and just about ever other luxury food item you can imagine. Presentations are appropriately exquisite. Pastry chefs are in nirvana, stacking desserts to the heavens, challenging gravity with spun-sugar fantasies. Along with the challenge of providing an evening of unparallel flavors, chefs must also find the cream-of-the-crop ingredients. To do this, chefs must search beyond the dry Nevada plains. He and many of the other chefs rely on a network of overnight suppliers.
People who come to Vegas now don’t just want to gamble. They want a full-blown resort with nightlife, art, culture and cutting-edge kitchens, because today’s tourists know good food and plan their vacations around the best dining available. Of course, some things haven’t changed. You can still gamble 24 hours a day, but the new Vegas of elegance and opulence has added a whole new twist to the party. The real winner is the customer who cares about food. Where to Stay;Bellagio, 702-693-7111. Mirage, 702-792-7223 MGM Grand, 702-891-3110 Where to Eat:Olives, Bellagio, 888-987-7111 Le Cirque, Bellagio, 702-693-8100 Picasso, Bellagio, 888-987-7111 Prime, Bellagio, 888-987-7111 Renoir, The Mirage, 888-777-7552 NobHill, MGM Grand, 702- 891-3110 |
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The
town known for its budget buffets, quickie marriages, and gaming tables has
become one of the top fine-dining destinations in the country. Few cities
can match Las Vegas’ nine James Beard Award winners, ranging from Julian
Serrano at the Bellagio’s Picasso to Michael Mina at Mirage’s Nobhill.
Casinos are knocking themselves out to acquire the best wine lists, the
largest art collections and the most highly acclaimed culinary talent. Why
are superstar chefs staking new turf in the desert? The answer is the same
as any answer in Las Vegas--money.
Power
restaurants are another way of bringing in money in other ways besides the
casinos. Chef’s names, much like the celebrities who headline in the
casinos, are a draw when placed on the marquis. The superstar chefs’
phenomenon developed in the past ten years after Wolfgang Puck’s 1992
opening of a Spago in Caesar’s Palace. When it was a runaway hit, other
people noticed. Las Vegas has a line-up of culinary stars including Sirio
Maccioni (Le Circque), Michael Mina (Nobhill), Jean-Georges Vongerichten
(Prime), Emeril Lagasse (Emeril’s), Tom Colicchio (Craft) Todd English
(Olives), and Mark Miller (Coyote Café). According to
In
most cases, the famous chefs whose reputations sell the restaurants rarely
cook there, but have sent ambitious, talented young cooks to execute their
menus. However, some top chefs like Alessandro Stratta at Renoir, Julian
Serrano at Picasso and Marc Podevan at Le Cirque have moved to Las Vegas
full time while Michael Mina has been spending a great deal of time at
Nobhill. Stratta is in there making the soup, Serrano is stirring the sauce,
and Podevan is searing the foie gras. Many young chefs are moving to Las
Vegas with hopes of taking advantage of training and experience with these
super-stars. There are around 30 high-profile establishments, almost all of
them high-end, on a three-mile strip. 
Julian
Serrano, who is credited with putting Masa’s at the very top of the San
Francisco dining hierarchy, packed up his knives and his family and moved to
Las Vegas to stay. “I feel like I’m in heaven, to be in this restaurant
every day,” says Serrano, now executive chef at Picasso. Serrano’s
restaurant is part of Bellagio, the sprawling resort hotel and casino opened
by hotelier and art collector Steve Wynn. Picasso’s dining room is hung with
true Picasso paintings, drawings and ceramics worth $52 million. Here, in a
dreamy Mediterranean villa setting, he offers two preset menus of modern
French cuisine with Spanish touches. The lineup changes nightly, but you’ll
usually find his signature foie gras in Madeira sauce or warm lobster salad
with mangoes or potatoes. Other Serrano masterworks on the menu feature
slow-cooked short ribs with pinot noir sauce, saffron-sauced sea bass,
poached oysters with osetra caviar, black peppermint bombe and roasted figs
on bread pudding with vanilla-white pepper ice cream. As seductive as the
food is, it’s one of the many harmonious elements: The views of Bellagio’s
dancing fountains, the carpet designed by Picasso’s son, Claude, the
hand-painted plates, the well-spaced tables, the knowledgeable wine stewards
and the smooth but friendly wait staff combine to make this one of the top
dining destinations. Each dish is a showstopper. Serrano won the James Beard
Foundation’s Best Chef of the Southwest award in 2002, the first award for a
resident Las Vegas chef or restaurant. 
There
are fifteen restaurants at Bellagio running the gamut from gourmet five-star
dining to easy informal meals. Across the foyer from Picasso, Jean-George
Vongerichten’s 1930’s art-deco Prime steak house is jammed with carnivores
feasting on roasted rib eye for two with wild mushrooms or a gigantic veal
chop with tangerine-pineapple chutney. Vongerichten, of New York City’s Jean
Georges and Vong fame, has imported his famous chickpea fries along with a
few twists on the steakhouse concept—seven kinds of mustards, 11 sauces,
potatoes served 10 ways. Upstairs is Todd’s English’s branch of the popular
Boston restaurant, Olives. The lively café ambiance of the restaurant offers
“interpretive Mediterranean” dishes at comparatively gentle prices.
Phoenix
superstar Alessandro Stratta, left Mary Elaine’s at The Phoenician, one of
Scottsdale, Arizona’s great restaurants, to display his artistry at Renoir.
Mirage’s owner Steve Wynn lured him to Las Vegas with an opportunity to
create the American equivalent of a Michelin three-star restaurant. “When
someone says that whatever you want goes, it’s very exciting for a chef.”
Stratta’s showcase in the Mirage is a 92-seat jewel box upon whose silk
walls hang four Renoir paintings and several other impressionist works from
the collection of Wynn. Stratta brought along his signature appetizer of
seared foie gras with pineapple and 100-year old balsamic vinegar, and a
remarkable knack for combining fresh/seasonal ingredients in enticing ways.
Appearing on his menu are roasted scallops topped with watercress and
chanterelles strewn over a sweet corn crepe or baby rack of lamb presented
over spiced apricots; or a strawberry-rhurbarb napoleon adorned with
buttermilk sorbet.
How
many employees does it take to maintain the magic? It depends on the hotel.
Bellagio alone requires 10,000 employees to meet the demands of the 3,000
room hotel, which produces 30,000 meals a day. In order to accommodate
the staff, the hotel contains an “employee village” equipped with a 24-hour
restaurant and cafeteria with its own bakery, a gym, a laundromat, and a
shopping center.