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.
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 Alexander Stratta, executive chef of Renoir in The Mirage, “Puck took a gamble in a place where there was a big void in the dining scene, and he brought quality and style to it.” It wouldn’t be fair to say Puck was the only one with a good idea. Mark Miller and Emeril Lagasse, whose Coyote Café and Fish House, respectively, joined Spago soon after and posed an instant triple threat to Vegas’ old ways. The trend picked up serious momentum in the past few years as the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and Venetian resorts opened with over a dozen high-profile eateries between them. 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. 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.
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.