Las Vegas is the spiritual home of the glitzy, celebrity chef-owned restaurant, but, despite all the fanfare, it’s still what’s on the plate that counts. These 20 establishments all excel in that category, regardless of the flashy names and opulent interiors.
Asian
Mr Chow, Caesars Palace
Purists may balk, but Mr Chow is about unabashed big-deal meal service, a luminous setting and the sense you’re being fed by, and dining with, grownups. Get the Beijing duck and the dressed Dungeness crab and enjoy old-school opulence in all the right ways.
Lotus of Siam, 953 E. Sahara Avenue
Multiple expansions haven’t dimmed the star of arguably the best Thai restaurant in the US (so sayeth I and almost every other critic). Go early for dinner or late for lunch if you want to get a table, and bring a thirst for German, Austrian and French wines. Bill Chutima’s riesling selections have become almost as famous as his wife’s northern Thai cooking.
Raku and Raku Sweets, 5030 W. Spring Mountain Road
Mitsuo Endo was one of the first chefs to bring elevated, izakaya cooking to Las Vegas, and he still does it best. Raku is for a certain kind of adventuresome food lover, but its sweet sister a few doors down serves finely crafted desserts that can be analysed, consumed wholesale, or simply admired for their art.
Wing Lei, Wynn Las Vegas
A jaw-dropping room, white-gloved service and upscale Chinese food (at a price) that will knock your socks off. Whether you’re an esteemed critic or an everyday dining enthusiast, you’ll find something to love on this menu, but I’m particularly partial to the steamed fish, hand-pulled noodles and perfect stir-fries.
Yui Edomae Sushi, 3460 Arville Street
Peerless Tokyo-style sushi and sashimi. Simple, direct and sliced by the piece for an omakase meal like none other. This is purist sushi, truly Japanese, with nary a California roll in sight. The A5 wagyu beef – grilled over binchotan charcoal – will take your breath away with its silkiness, fattiness and price.
French
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, MGM Grand
There are multiple L’Ateliers around the globe these days, but this one takes a back seat to none of them. Chef Steve Benjamin has been at the helm since it opened in 2005 and the dishes coming out of his open kitchen never fail to astonish. The dizzying array of menus and à la carte options encourage abandon, but demand restraint. Do what we do: just close your eyes and point. And get the sweetbreads. And the hanger steak. And the spaghetti.
Joël Robuchon, MGM Grand
The big daddy of the“big-deal meal” restaurants in Las Vegas. Intricate, high-flying and French are the watchwords here. The high-ceilinged room, with its French windows giving on to an “outdoor” balcony with real plants, will make you forget you’re in the middle of Las Vegas at all. Read an exclusive interview with “chef of the century” Joël Robuchon.
Le Cirque, Bellagio
A jewel of a restaurant in a jewel box of a space. The Maccioni family (who own the original Le Cirque in New York) do not have a hands-on role here any more, but the food, wine and service remain as spot-on as when Sirio Maccioni himself was kissing cheeks and badgering waiters. The dishes – under culinary wunderkind Wilfried Bergerhausen – have become highly inventive and taken a step away from the more traditional haute cuisine served up at the original Le Cirque.
Picasso, Bellagio
Where else in the world can you walk around a restaurant and see a dozen works by the master himself? Even if you wouldn’t know a Picasso from a black velvet Elvis, you’ll still be impressed by Julian Serrano’s menu that, after 18 years, continues to get the best venison and scallops west of the Hudson. The wine list could also keep you occupied for days.
Restaurant Guy Savoy, Caesars Palace
When it’s on its game, this is one of the best restaurants in the world, with gorgeous, sophisticated food that doesn’t need to pirouette on the plate to impress. The deep, refined flavours do that all by themselves. The wine list is a treasure trove, with more than a few relative bargains, if you’re willing to dig.
Twist by Pierre Gagnaire, Mandarin Oriental
Twist isn’t for everyone. Like all restaurants in the Gagnaire oeuvre, it takes a decidedly adventuresome tack towards most of its menu. Here they take creative seasonality seriously, making menu fatigue an impossibility. Get a tasting menu, buckle your seatbelt and enjoy the ride. Or get a steak and bathe in one of the best bordelaise sauces in the business.
Italian and Mediterranean
Carbone, Aria
A New York import that arrived in the Nevada desert with its pedigree intact, Carbone is a homage to the city’s classic Italian-American restaurants and has succeeded in packing in the diners every night, with lots of tableside histrionics to go with gutsy pastas and the best veal parmigiana this side of Manhattan.
é by José Andrés, Cosmopolitan
The toughest seat to score in town, made by email reservation only, gets you one of eight “golden tickets” for a molecular ride the likes of which you won’t experience anywhere outside of Spain. Ferran Adrià of elBulli was José Andrés’ spiritual mentor, and his influence is everywhere on the seasonal menu. In the wrong hands, this cuisine is pretentious; here it is profound.
Estiatorio Milos, Cosmopolitan
The best fish in town, period. Also the best Greek food in town by a Peloponnesian mile. You’ll pay through the nose, but you’ll also be shouting “Opa!” with every bite. Come for the $29, three-course lunch if you’re on a budget.
Ferraro’s Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar, 4480 Paradise Road
Slightly off the Strip lies one of Las Vegas’s best Italian restaurants, family run, and dishing up the kind of pastas and proteins that compete with anything Antonio Carluccio could throw at you. The Ferraros (who are always on the premises) had the good sense to put Francesco di Caudo in charge of the kitchen a couple of years ago, and he upgraded the food to put it on a par with their world-class Italian wine list.
Modern American
Michael Mina, Bellagio
Start with the tableside-mixed tuna tartare (everyone does), then throw caution to the wind as you order the whole lobe of foie gras. Follow that with Mina’s decadent lobster pot pie and a wagyu “surf & turf” and you’ll have plenty of reasons to hit the Stairmaster once you return to your life of kale smoothies and denuded chicken.
Sage, Aria
High ceilings and theatrical decor set the stage for some of Las Vegas’s most dramatic food. The seven-course tasting menu is a flat-out steal at $110 (with wine pairings for an additional $65), but you won’t want to miss the standards on the menu – foie gras brulee, roasted sweetbreads, kusshi oysters with peppers – either. The bar and bar menu are as stunning as the main room.
Steak
Bazaar Meat, SLS
Calling it a meat emporium is a little unfair, since the seafood and wacky Spanish (read: molecular) creations are every bit as good as the steaks. This is José Andrés’ other Las Vegas restaurant, and everyone raves about the cotton candy foie gras, but it’s the tartares (both tomato and steak) that deserve your attention first. Then it’s on to jamon croquetas, sucking-pig, or whatever else suits your fancy in the Andrés’ repertoire … and it’s a huge repertoire.
Carnevino, Palazzo
Next to New York, Las Vegas has the greatest steakhouses in the US, and Mario Batali’s steak and wine emporium can go hoof to hoof with any of them. Here the beef is aged in-house, for months not days, and the “riserva” steaks call to you from the enormous menu, as do the pastas, salads and house-made salumi. The wine list is a dream for lovers of the “killer Bs” – barolo, brunello and barbaresco.
Prime Steakhouse, Bellagio
Eighteen years on and Prime still boasts one of the prettiest dining rooms in the US. A revamped bar area provides more room for nibbling and sipping, and the main room blends beefiness with romance as well as any place in which you’ll ever enjoy a peppercorn-crusted strip steak.
