LAS VEGAS – As far as restaurants are concerned, it’s a buyer’s market in Las Vegas these days. What’s bad for the city’s 5,000 unemployed food workers is a bonanza for diners in search of bargains.”Everywhere you go, there are deals galore,” says John Curtas, who has been writing about the restaurant scene since 1995.
Except for the $25 pot of coffee I foolishly ordered from room service at the tony Wynn Las Vegas in July, the food critic for Nevada Public Radio and Eatinglv.com is right. Just about everywhere I went, I saw (and sometimes tasted) the upside of the recession.
Carnevino, chef Mario Batali’s pricey Italian steak house in the Venetian – calamari for $23, anyone? – has launched a daily “burger brunch.” For $30, diners get a cheeseburger, salad or chips, and two beers, Bellinis or Bloody Marys.
Meal with a view: Tables at Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare in the Wynn overlook a pool decorated with floating silver balls.
Since February, 13 of the Wynn’s restaurants have been offering three-course dinners for as low as $29. (Meanwhile, guest rooms can be had for $20. That’s the price that Hooters Casino Hotel, a block off the Strip, charges for a package that throws in two breakfasts and show tickets.)
For a food lover, three days in Las Vegas isn’t nearly enough time to scratch the surface of possibilities. But what I learned in 72 hours of table-hopping is that the cooking on the Strip is generally better than the cooking off it; that midweek is a more relaxed experience than Friday or Saturday, when big crowds still flock to town; and that fancy double-digit cocktails in the desert show no signs of going the way of Liberace.
Asked about business in the city, a bartender at the Mirage smiled and said, “People will drink if they’re rich or they’re poor.”
From my notebook to yours:
Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare
Sea World has nothing on the fish trolley at this upscale Italian restaurant in the Wynn. On any given night, the glass-topped display might pack in turbot, John Dory, sole from the Adriatic, pink snapper, and an animated lobster or langoustine. The piscine tour, offered during the first few minutes of an evening, sets a diner up for impeccably fresh ingredients and the tabs that underscore such quality. It’s not every restaurant that has its own fish tank and employs a marine biologist to watch over the contents, as this one does.Don’t expect a lot of fireworks as far as presentation is concerned. The restaurant prefers that you savor the fish and seafood, flown in three to five times a week from Italy, in as pure and simple a way as they are probably enjoyed where they’re caught. That still leaves something to swoon over on the plate – maybe steamed clams in a winy tomato sauce, or a perfect fritto misto of octopus, silvery little fish, and baby soft-shell crabs, fat buttons of pleasure culled from Venice.
After consultation with the maitre d’, a companion and I settle on sea bream roasted in a salt crust. The snowy-sweet fish is accompannied by crisp potatoes and sliced zucchini, and with an herbed anchovy sauce that I’d kill to be able to get on my home turf.
It’s not just the fish that whisks you to Italy from course to course. The pasta is terrific, too. Seafood risotto is as much lobster, scallops, and shrimp as rice, while ravioli stuffed with sheep’s milk cheese are supple hats anointed with a glaze that hints of Marsala and veal stock.
You will pay dearly for such quality: That sea bream for two set me back $120. But it’s definitely the most exquisite catch in the desert, on a par with the fare at the finest fish houses on either U.S. coast.
Besides, there’s always the option of Bartolotta’s Taste of Wynn: three courses for $69. Among the entree choices are a seafood stew and baked fish with artichokes and oregano.
Bartolotta is one of only a handful of celebrity-chef destinations in Las Vegas whose namesake owners actually toil there on a regular basis: Paul Bartolotta this year won his second regional cooking award from the James Beard Foundation for this impressive seafood establishment. His is not the most glamorous dining room on the Strip, but I appreciate the view of a pool with floating silver balls, ringed by cabanas, and a sommelier who not only chooses wines at a lesser price than I’m considering but also keeps stain remover in her purse for clumsy guests. (Guilty!)
3131 Las Vegas Blvd. S. in the Wynn, 702-248-3463, www.wynnlasvegas.com. Entrees $29-$54.
Joël Robuchon
A noisy casino sprawls right outside the restaurant entrance, but once the curved glass door is closed, you feel as though you’ve been transported to Paris and a jewel box brimming with edible art.It takes a few minutes to absorb all the richness. The intimate, 42-seat main dining room in the MGM Grand Hotel is plush with purple velvet banquettes, a quiet fire, enormous sprays of flowers, and a sparkling chandelier. To the side is a second room, “the vertical garden,” its walls covered with English ivy and the floor fragrant with flowers.
Named for the Frenchman who was hailed as “chef of the century” for his magic at the late Jamin in Paris, the four-year-old Joël Robuchon is an utterly civilized scene, but not so stuffy that you can’t relax. The guy next to me isn’t wearing a jacket; the woman behind me is laughing softly.
Robuchon’s amuse-bouche raises the bar for gifts from chefs. The gratis treat is sweet crab paved with glistening osetra caviar in a tin set into a shiny black frame. What follows is all beautiful and mostly delicious, although I can relate to the well-traveled chef who confided in me, “It’s one of the top three meals in the United States, but I can’t remember what I ate.”
With a few exceptions, no dish dazzled me as much as did the accumulation of details. One of those exceptions – smoked mackerel brushed with creamy mustard, dotted with orange roe, and staged with a perfect garden of vegetables atop a glass-and-mesh plate – is brilliant on multiple levels. Still, I think I could make a meal of the bread cart alone, neatly arranged as it is with a baker’s dozen of French classics, including tender milk buns, miniature baguettes, glossy brioches, and small rolls green with basil. And the sweets cart, proffering exquisite bonbons, bite-size cakes, and macaroons, turns every adult into a wide-eyed kid again.
Robuchon’s 16-course tasting menu costs $385 per person for food alone. (One good thing to come from the recession: In May, the restaurant introduced less costly notions, including a three-course menu for $89.) The price of admission is not inexpensive, but the meal qualifies as a feast, factoring in an amuse-bouche, that bread service, one of the most sensual rooms in the city, and a sense of why Robuchon, the man, continues to be revered.
3799 Las Vegas Blvd. S. in the MGM Grand Hotel, 702-891-7925, www.mgmgrand.com. Tasting menus from $89 to $385 per person.
Aburiya Raku
If you want to know where some of the city’s top chefs go when they’re not working, snag a cab for the short ride from the Strip to a nondescript stretch of shops and this tiny Japanese pub. A chorus of spirited “hellos” from the servers makes a diner feel immediately at home. Their mention of tofu made right there and the availability of live scallops suggest the presence of a chef who pays attention to the details.Mitsuo Endo, formerly of the very good Megu in New York, does not disappoint. His specialty involves grilling meat and fish (chicken thighs, pork cheeks, and those scallops) over a Japanese charcoal fire. Delicately smoky, they’re good on their own, although a splash of “chili water” from Okinawa or a dusting of hot pepper flakes heightens the pleasure.
Endo’s tofu, light and fluffy as fresh ricotta, is turned out of a small basket, leaving a woven pattern on its ivory surface. Garnishes of bonito shavings, grated ginger, and chopped scallions lend color and depth to what is already a thrilling thing to eat.
As I watch several parties gently turned away at the door of this chocolate-colored shoebox, I’m glad that I booked ahead for one of only seven tables. Dinner for two, with more food than we can finish, costs $120, including drinks, tax, and tip.
Seemingly everything we eat or drink comes with a little story or a quiet surprise. The pebbly casing on an appetizer of asparagus “tempura” turns out to be crushed rice crackers, a server confides. The chilled earthenware cups for our sake let us taste first with our fingertips. Admiring the slender wooden support for a tasting of three sakes, I ask a bubbly server about its design. “Mitsuo made it,” she says.
Figures.
5030 Spring Mountain Rd., 702-367-3511. Entrees
$7.50-$30 (for whole fish).
BLT Burger
Even before you reach a table, your ears beg for relief from the pulsing rock-and-roll soundtrack and whatever games happen to be playing on multiple flat-screen TVs. And once you sit down, the temptation to bolt is strong.Noisy and brash, the year-old BLT Burger in the Mirage Hotel & Casino could pass for a Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood. But my heart was set on a good burger, and if any place here could fulfill that request, it is probably an offshoot of BLT Steak and a formula from New York chef Laurent Tourondel. (He’s the LT part of the popular bistro empire.)
Here’s a survival tip: Grab a seat at the curved yellow bar. It’s set with bowls of peanuts in their shells for munching, and it looks onto one of the busiest grills I’ve ever seen: At peak times, 300 burgers might sizzle to doneness every hour. Even so, you get your seven-ounce patty the way you ask for it (in this case, cooked medium-rare and enhanced with blue cheese and sauteed onions). The beef is a blend of chuck, sirloin and brisket; the bun comes with a faint crunch from toasting.
“Tip waiters, not cows,” reads the T-shirt of the guy who delivers our juicy sandwiches. Beef is the theme but not the only draw at BLT Burger. The options extend to burgers made with lamb, turkey, and American Kobe beef, and average an easy-to-digest $12. I vote for the crunch and the cool in the ground-shrimp-and-pork burger, designed to taste like a Vietnamese banh mi with cilantro, pickled daikon, and carrots. Twenty brews on tap and six pedestrian wines by the glass give the advantage to beer drinkers.
Reminders that you’re in Sin City and not just Anywhere, USA: a life-size desert panorama on the wall, milkshakes spiked with booze, and the option of ordering the Stripper. That’s a burger without a bun.
3400 Las Vegas Blvd. S. in the Mirage Hotel & Casino, 702-792-7888, www.bltburger.com. Burgers $10-$17.
The Next ‘It’ Liquor
Spirits gurus predict that rum is poised to be the next “it” liquor. Rhumbar, a vision in white, is all the evidence I need to toast the forecast.
The theme of the slender lounge in the Mirage Hotel & Casino, and its source of inspiration, surface in mostly subtle details: a fancy cigar display to the side and some metal rooster sculptures displayed in glass cases.
“Cockfighting is a big sport in Puerto Rico,” a bartender says, explaining the three-dimensional art.
It would take someone two months of nightly exploration to sip his way through the bar’s 65 rums. The fantasy is fun to think about, but I’ve got only a weekend, so I stick to my options on the cocktail list, almost 20 drinks strong. They’re an elegant and slyly potent bunch.
If you think you don’t like rum, the Hemingway daiquiri here will change your mind; lime juice, maraschino liqueur, and fresh grapefruit juice can be very persuasive. If you’re already a fan of rum, the spicy Latin Manhattan topped off with Jamaican ginger beer reminds you why. The $49 Scorpion Bowl lives up to its reputation (we’re talking 8 ounces of gin and three types of rums) and requires a two-person minimum. The average cost per cocktail is $12, not bad considering the craftsmanship.
The bartenders, who come up with two new cocktails using a different rum every month, take few shortcuts. The daiquiri mix is made with freshly squeezed lime juice, and even basil leaves are squeezed for their liquid for another cocktail.
Rhumbar extends to one of the few outdoor patios on the Strip, where overhead misters help keep loungers cool. But I prefer one of the marshmallow-soft stools at the bar and the chance to see my mai tai – the real deal, based on a 1944 recipe and flavored with lime, curacao, and French orgeat (almond flavoring) – shaken before my eyes. 3400 Las Vegas Blvd. S. in the Mirage, 702-792-7615, www.mirage.com/nightlife/rhumbar.aspx. Cocktails $12-$20.
- Tom Sietsema
Getting to Vegas
Southwest, United and US Airways fly nonstop to Las Vegas from Philadelphia International Airport. The lowest recent round-trip fare was about $260.
