Tony Cenicola/The New York Times MR. UNPREDICTABLE Pierre Gagnaire's first restaurant in the United States will be in Las Vegas.
PERHAPS the most curious thing about Twist by Pierre Gagnaire in Las Vegas — the American beachhead soon to be established by a legendary seigneur of Parisian cooking — is its intended humility.
“The idea is not to make a big show,” the 59-year-old chef said on a recent afternoon. “I hope it will be an experimental experience, in a humble way.” He paused and shook his grayish mane. “I don’t want to be the French chef saying, ‘I’ll show you how to cook.’ ”
He smiled. “I will be quiet.”
His cooking, however, will soon speak for itself. And when it opens Dec. 4, his restaurant will have grandeur enough: a cost of $7 million, a 72-seat design by Adam Tihany, and prominence in the 23rd-floor lobby of the luxe, non-gambling 47-story Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the $8.5 billion CityCenter.
Mr. Gagnaire has seven restaurants, in Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Dubai and Hong Kong, but his entrance is belated among the three-Michelin-star Parisian sachems in Las Vegas — Alain Ducasse, Joël Robuchon and Guy Savoy.
Still, in a city that remains scoured by recession, the arrival of a chef who has attracted a cult of devotees, and influenced a generation of high-profile French kitchens, has drawn more than a little anticipation.
The chef, who first won three Michelin stars in 1993, has been variously perceived by critics as an enfant terrible, a conjurer and a master of suspense and, well, humor. Those who have been observing his high-wire act for years wonder how he will wed his audience and his art.
“When you’re going to Gagnaire,” Patricia Wells, the author who runs a Paris cooking school, said of his previous restaurants, “you fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
His cooking has been noted for occasionally iconoclastic — and usually playful and unpredictable — experiments in taste, color, texture and ingredient selection.
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