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Dining
As recently as the early 1990s, the restaurant scene in Las Vegas was governed by the notion that visitors were not prepared to pay for gourmet food. All the casinos laid on both pile-'em-high buffets at knock-down prices, and 24-hour coffeeshops offering bargain steak-and-egg deals, but virtually the only quality restaurants in town were upscale Italian places well away from the Strip. The theory was that the longer tourists spent lingering over their meals, the less time they had left to play the tables.
Now, however, the situation has reversed, as the major casinos compete to attract culinary superstars from all over the country to open Vegas outlets. The first such venture was Wolfgang Puck's Spago in Caesars Palace, back in 1992; these days, as each new casino opens, it's taken for granted that it will have as many as ten world-class restaurants. Asked what had persuaded him to relocate to Las Vegas, one leading chef replied "three million dollars." Many tourists now visit the city specifically to eat at several of the best restaurants in the United States, without having to reserve a table months in advance or pay sky-high prices. Which is not to say that fine dining comes cheap in Las Vegas, just that most of the big-name restaurants are less expensive, and less snooty, than they are in their home cities.
Another break with tradition is that these days the accountants require each sector of a casino-resort to be financially solvent. Where once it was considered worth running the restaurants and showrooms at a loss because they lured in gamblers, they now have to be self-supporting. Thus prices are not what they were, with buffets more like $8 rather than $3, and breakfast specials at $4.50 not $1.99. Even so, for budget eating Las Vegas still beats anywhere else in the country.
America New York-New York, 3790 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/740-6451. Daily 24hr.
Cavernous diner, tucked in behind the registration desk, which derives its knowing retro-chic feel from a vast 3-D "map" of the United States, measuring 30ft by 90ft, that curls down from the ceiling. The menu is staggeringly eclectic, but each item supposedly comes from some specific part of the country. Thus appetizers include Alaskan crab fritters for $7.50, Cajun mini sticks for $4, and super nachos at $6, while the entrees range from Texan barbecue ribs for $13, via New York pizzas ($7-9), down to peanut butter sandwiches from Plains, Georgia (home to Jimmy Carter), for $4. At any hour of day or night, there really is something for everyone, and it's all surprisingly good.
Aqua Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/693-7223. Daily 5.30-11pm.
This offshoot of San Francisco's celebrated seafood restaurant, located off Bellagio's Conservatory, has established itself in Las Vegas's very highest echelon. Its tasteful, understated decor matches the exquisite delicacy of the cuisine. The standout appetizer is the $15 black mussel soufflé, while the miso-glazed Chilean sea bass with shellfish consommé, at $32, is typical of the entrees. Rather strangely, the only alternative to seafood is foie gras, ranging from a $20 appetizer up to an entire roast one for $90. If you can't bear to decide, there's a $75 tasting menu, with a vegetarian alternative at $60.
Border Grill Mandalay Bay, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/632-7403. Sun-Thurs 11.30am-10pm, Fri & Sat 11.30am-11pm.
The Strip's finest Mexican restaurant, facing the spectacular wave pool at the back of Mandalay Bay, comes into its own in summer when tables are spread out across a large open-air patio, though even in winter its high ceilings and light decor give it a spacious feel. Chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger wrote Mexican Cooking for Dummies, but the food is a whole lot classier than that might suggest (though it's worth steering clear of the very ordinary ceviche). Lunchtime offerings include sandwiches, like a portabello torta ($11), and a chicken Caesar salad ($12); dinner is a little more expensive, with a roasted half-chicken mole at $17.50 and a 16oz gaucho steak for $28.
China Grill Mandalay Bay, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/632-7404. Sun-Thurs 5.30-11pm, Fri & Sat 5.30pm-midnight.
This very large, ultra-fashionable Asian restaurant claims to derive its concept from Marco Polo's thirteenth-century return to Europe from the Orient, though nowhere is it recorded that he brought back wasabi mashed potatoes or lobster pancakes. The main dining room is cone-shaped, with a $750,000 psychedelic light show projected on the ceiling. If you enjoy Eastern flavors, the food is delicious, with appetizers like a crackling calamari salad for $12.50 and tempura sashimi for $18, and $29.50 entrees such as dry aged Szechuan beef with sake and soy or pan-seared tuna. However, under a bizarre serving policy, the dishes arrive as they are made; your appetizers may appear before, after or simultaneously with your entrees, and your "accompaniments" can turn up long after you've finished both. If that doesn't suit you, you're made to feel very uncool indeed.
Chinois Forum Shops, Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/737-9700. Café daily 11.30am-midnight, restaurant daily 6-10.30pm.
Wolfgang Puck's quintessentially postmodern Asian-fusion restaurant offers café-style terrace seating at the mall level, and a more formal dining room upstairs; whichever you choose, FAO Schwarz's Trojan horse watches your every move. Despite the stylish decor - all tiles, jade, and turquoise, with running water to aid the feng shui - the tables themselves are kept minimal, with no tablecloths, ornaments, or even condiments, and the young black-clad staff can be too busy posing glamorously to provide attentive service. The food itself is upmarket, nouvelle-tinged Chinese. Appetizers at $7-10 include moo shu duck - a healthier version of Peking duck - while the best of the entrees, all priced under $20, is a delicious pepper-crusted red snapper in a mushroom-soy broth. Good-value, three-course set lunches cost $15-17.
Commander's Palace Desert Passage, Aladdin, 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/892-8272. Daily 11.30am-2pm & 6-11pm; limited menu also available 2.30-4.30pm.
New Orleans' renowned haute Creole restaurant - repeatedly voted the best restaurant in the US - occupies pride of place at the front of the Desert Passage, with its windows though not its doors right on the Strip. Its dark wood fittings, and combination of formal place settings with friendly service, do a great job of evoking the Big Easy, though at $8 for a bowl of gumbo the prices can come as a shock. From classic appetizers like shrimp remoulade ($9.50) and oysters Rockefeller ($8.50), through entrees such as pecan-crusted Gulf fish ($27.50) or veal chop Tchoupitoulas ($39), to the bananas Foster for dessert ($7) - invented by the Brennan family, who have owned Commander's for over a century - it's a gourmet's delight. For a complete blow-out, opt for the $75, seven-course tasting menu; or come for the $35 champagne jazz brunch on Sun.
Coyote Cafe MGM Grand, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/891-7349. Café daily 7.30am-11pm, Grill Room daily 5.30-10pm.
When it opened in 1993, this outpost of Mark Miller's definitive "Modern Southwestern" restaurant, originally based in Santa Fe, helped to blaze the trail for gourmet cuisine in Las Vegas, and it remains among the city's best options. It's divided into two sections; the cheaper Cafe, open to the main casino walkway, offers good-value breakfasts and light lunches as well as much the same dinner menu as the quieter, more formal, Mark Miller Grill Room behind. Decked out in tasteful terracotta colors, the latter can be relied on for signature appetizers like habanero crabcake ($11), and slightly less adventurous entrees at $20-35, such as steak and beans, or seared ahi with coconut couscous.
Every casino these days seems to have an in-house espresso bar, whether it's a Starbucks or its own brand. The best bakeries are in New York-New York and Paris, while Excalibur and the Venetian, among others, hold wonderful Krispy Kreme donut outlets.
Delmonico's Steakhouse The Venetian, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/414-3737. Sun-Thurs 11.30am-2pm & 5.30-10.30pm, Fri & Sat 11.30am-2pm & 5.30-11pm.
Although TV chef Emeril Lagasse has given Las Vegas a classic New Orleans steakhouse, Delmonico's decor is "modern Tuscan," in deference to the Venetian's Italian roots. Only one of its many dining rooms, equipped with arched ceilings and a fireplace, is at all intimate or appealing; the rest are austere and minimal. The whole place reeks of money; a humble baked potato costs $6, while several wines hit the $3000 mark. Even the least likely items come swimming in butter - Emeril's not one to stint - but the meat at the core of the experience is excellent, with each large and very tender steak priced at $28-36. While there's usually just one fish entree, such as a $27 grilled salmon, appetizers include barbecue shrimp at $9.50 and oysters Bienville for $12. Lunch consists of smaller, cheaper servings of substantially the same menu.
8-0-8 Caesars Palace, 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/731-7110 Thurs-Mon 5.30-10.30pm.
Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated newcomer on Las Vegas' dining scene - and an instant hit with high rollers, making reservations a must - is Hawaiian superchef Jean-Marie Josselin's 8-0-8, located just off Caesars' main lobby (and thus a fair walk from the Forum). Named for Hawaii's area code, and decked out with tricksy copper mouldings that evoke little beyond a vague sense of eclecticism, it specializes in a fusion of Asian and European cuisines that's at its best in superb $14-20 appetizers like crab cakes with spicy remoulade and Josselin's trademark "deconstructed ahi roll." Meat entrees tend to be fairly conventional, such as a roasted rack of lamb ($36) or seared New York strip ($32), though served with more exotic vegetables like red lentil dahl or a shiitake mushroom compote. Unsurprisingly, the seafood emphasis is on Hawaiian fish like wok-charred mahi mahi ($24) or potato-crusted Hawaiian snapper ($28). For desserts, the accent becomes firmly French, with fabulous soufflés.
Emeril's New Orleans Fish House MGM Grand, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/891-7374. Daily 11.30am-2.30pm & 5.30-10.30pm, seafood bar 11.30am-10.30pm.
The first Las Vegas venture of Emeril Lagasse (see Delmonico's) was to carve an authentic slice of New Orleans into the heart of the vast MGM Grand; complete with aged red brickwork and black cast-iron railings, his French Quarter-style restaurant features "terrace,""indoor," and counter dining. While Cajun seafood with a modern (but never low-cal) twist is the specialty, with barbecue shrimp for $19 at lunchtime and redfish in red bean sauce for $25 at dinner, the menu also includes meat options such as black truffle and herb-roasted chicken ($25) and cedar plank steak ($25). Yes, the waiters do say "Bam" as they deliver each dish. If you find the entrees gut-bustingly rich, wait until you see the desserts; but it's all so fabulous you can't help throwing caution to the winds.
Fat Burger 3765 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/736-4733. Dining room daily 10.30am-10pm, drive-thru window daily 24hr.
There's no more to this gleaming, all-American burger joint, next door to the World of Coca-Cola and the MGM Grand, than meets the eye. Quite simply, you can walk or drive in from the Strip at any time, and get a perfect burger, fries, and shake.
Hamada Luxor, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/262-4000. Sun-Thurs 11am-midnight, Fri & Sat 11am-2am.
Las Vegas's best sushi chain has several branches, including outlets at the MGM Grand, the Flamingo and the Stratosphere, as well as this somewhat small and unglamorous one near the front entrance of Luxor. Daily lunch specials cost $8-10, while a full sashimi meal costs $21.50 during the day or $34 in the evening.
Il Fornaio New York-New York, 3790 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/650-6500. Sun-Thurs 7am-10pm, Fri & Sat 7am-midnight.
Much the nicest place to enjoy the atmosphere of New York-New York, with a high-ceilinged "indoor" dining room plus terrace seating alongside Central Park, this rural-Italian restaurant, staffed by very flirtatious waiters who speak Italian among themselves, is a real joy. Grab a pizza for around $12, or linger over a full meal of perhaps mixed antipasto ($9.50) to start, followed by seafood linguini ($19), rotisserie chicken ($16), or Colorado lamb with rosemary ($24). Il Fornaio's delicious olive breads, pastries and espresso coffees are also sold in the separate deli alongside the front desk.
Isis Luxor, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/262-4773. Daily 5.30-11pm.
A real only-in-Vegas experience, this very classy gourmet restaurant matches any in the city for cuisine, while nonetheless reveling in its high-camp Egyptian trimmings. Guests have to wear "appropriate" formal attire - ties are not compulsory - and run an Indiana-Jones gauntlet of gilded statues and columns to get in. You also have to spend at least $40 per person, which isn't too hard when vegetables are $8 per portion. Typical meat entrees like grilled veal scallopine with oysters cost $37, seafood or fowl alternatives a little less. Appetizers such as poached oysters are more like $16.
Lombardi's Desert Passage, Aladdin, 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/731-1755. Sun-Thurs 11am-10pm, Fri & Sat 11am-11pm.
Dependable, good-value Italian restaurant, with seating both indoors and "outdoors" (under the artificial sky) in the Desert Passage's appealing Oasis Square, with its revolving cast of street musicians, acrobats, and belly dancers. It offers pretty much all things to all comers, whether you fancy a soup or salad for $6-8, a cheap pasta or pizza meal for $10-15, or a gourmet special such as rack of lamb or seared sea bass in basil and saffron broth for more like $20. Similarly, tables come with paper tablecloths and crayons, so the kids can doodle, but there's a stylish flourish to the service.
Margarita's Mexican Cantina The New Frontier, 3120 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/794-8433. Daily 11am-10.30pm.
This appealingly old-fashioned bar-cum-restaurant on the main casino floor of the New Frontier, where the south-of-the border decor includes murals, fake vine trellises, and high-backed wooden chairs, offers the best-value Mexican food on the Strip. Warm tortillas and dips are served as soon as you sit down, while the satisfyingly substantial tacos, burritos, or fajitas cost $8-12, and a 12oz margarita to wash it all down is a mere $4.
Mon Ami Gabi Paris, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/944-4224. Sun-Thurs 11.30am-3.30pm & 5-11pm, Fri & Sat 11.30am-3.30pm & 5pm-midnight.
Las Vegas life doesn't get much better than lunch at Mon Ami Gabi, the only major casino restaurant to offer open-air seating right on the Strip, facing Bellagio's fountains and rendered comfortable by parasols in summer and outdoor heaters in winter. The feel is of a proper French pavement bistro, down to the decor and furnishings both outside and in the conservatory-like indoor dining room. As for the menu, it boasts a gloriously authentic onion soup ($6.50) that's buried so deep in cheese it's almost impossible to find; mussels ($11) as an appetizer or entree ($20); and thin-cut steak frites ($19-21). The choice expands for dinner, with other steak cuts such as onglet ("hanger steak;" $20) or a rib eye ($33); oysters, seafood platters ($13 per person), and fish entrees like sea bass or lemon sole ($21-24) round out the menu. End the meal with a fine rich French dessert, such as crêpe suzette ($6-8).
The Noodle Kitchen The Mirage, 3400 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/456-4564. Daily 11am-4am.
A little-known secret, tucked inside - and sharing the same anonymous, over-bright buffet-style decor with - the Mirage's Caribe Cafe coffee-shop, which itself has something for everyone, from a hot dog for $5 to a $23 T-bone. The Noodle Kitchen serves a short, separate Asian menu, with bargain barbecued chicken or stir-fried duck with noodles for around $10, and a bowl of seafood udon for $21.
Noodles Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/693-8131. Daily 11am-3am.
Despite being hidden away behind the Baccarat bar and having a lower profile than Bellagio's big-name restaurants, this all-purpose Asian eatery is a stylish, high-class affair, kitted out like a postmodern apothecary with display shelves of slender glass jars. The menu spans Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Chinese cuisine, with soup noodles at $9-15, wok-fried noodles $14-17, and alternatives such as barbecued pork or duck, and steamed rice or congee. Of the dim sum, the $6 shiu mai dumplings, packed with minced pork and large pieces of shrimp, and served with a searing mustard sauce, are absolutely succulent.
Olives Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 702/693-8181. Daily 11am-2.30pm & 5-11.30pm.
Bellagio's best-value gourmet restaurant has a lovely terrace setting, facing the Eiffel Tower across the lake. Run by Todd English and Victor LaPlaca from Boston, it's kitted out with a playful yellow decor, featuring candy-striped columns and a mosaic floor - despite consisting largely of colored plastic spoons, the central chandelier-cum-mobile cost $1 million. Even if it is the kind of place that calls a $10 pizza an "individual oven-baked flatbread," and your food is more likely to be arranged vertically than horizontally, the largely Mediterranean menu is uniformly fresh and superb. It's a great spot for lunch, with $10-13 appetizers like tuna or beef carpaccio and crispy fried oysters on jumbo ham hocks, pasta dishes like ricotta gnocchi ($16), and specials such as barbecued yellow-fin tuna on roasted onion polenta with spicy avocado salad ($18.50). Dinner entrees are pricier, at $28-40, but at least you get their trademark platter of huge, delicious olives as soon as you sit down.
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