Las Vegas Weekly

August 19, 2008 · 6 AM

Fabulous foods, wondrous wines make Vegas the world’s fine dining leader

By Robin Leach

“Champagne wishes and caviar dreams” are always true when they involve fabulous food and wondrous wines in the new Las Vegas -- which has become the world’s new No. 1 dining destination. Now it's getting even more elaborate and expensive because the star chefs have literally turned the Vegas dining scene into a literal theater and nightclub experience.

The yellow pages listing under restaurants looks like the secret phone directory at the Food Network! Everybody from Wolfgang Puck to Guy Savoy, Joel Robuchon, Thomas Keller, Charlie Palmer, Michael Mina and Emeril LaGasse has extraordinary palaces of pleasure in this desert dining kingdom.

There are three specific trends developing here that will revolutionize the worldwide dining scene but also keep Vegas at the top:

* Restaurateurs have decided they don’t want their customers to leave! So when dinner is over with, it's simply time to drink and dance in the club lounge that’s now part of the scene.

* Damn the expense! Rare wines and pricey taste treats are reaching into the stratospheric level -- and still the customers say "charge it" without batting an eye!

* No longer is it just food on a plate. Now it's biodynamic produce, organics and even molecular gastronomy. Vegas is truly in the forefront of the new “science of cooking."

There are two brand new restaurants in the just-opened Palazzo resort casino alongside The Venetian that have combined club-lounges right under the same roof. Sushi Samba from New York, Chicago and Miami is the largest of all, combining Japanese and South American fusions with both a chill lounge for mojitas and a nightclub for champagne. In Dos Caminos -- the world’s largest Mod-Mex cucina with 750 seats -- the guacamole and lobster is prepared right at your table. Forget tacos and a salsa dip -- this cuisine rivals any French three-star kitchen king!

For drinking, dining and dancing without even moving, there’s the giant 55,000 square foot Asian-themed, three-story Tao complex in the Venetian, and the bordello-styled Cathouse in the Luxor with Iron Chef winner Kerry Simon and his lingerie-clad waitresses. Kerry also has the hottest new dayclub dining scene at the Palms with three different dining experiences in one restaurant, located in the center of the new Palms Place sixth floor. Italian superchef Steve Martorano says you can simply do whatever you want at his Rio resort café -- and that includes dancing on top the tables if you wish! Pasta and towers of eggplant and mozzarella are just intermezzos between the disco sounds of Lou Rawls and Barry White!

But the new Charlie Trotter restaurant and bar at the Palazzo provides three absolute ultimate areas of eating: A chefs table perched high above the kitchen so dinner guests can watch the orchestra of kitchen sous-staff perform a symphony of skills below; a sushi-styled bar where you can choose seven- or 14-course nibbles from a 75-item list and a walk-through open wine cellar into the main dining room where the emphasis is on the freshest of fish and unique heirloom vegetables without butter or cream in the prep.

Money is no object in the land of wretched excess: who’s got the most expensive hamburger in town? At Daniel Boulud in the Wynn Las Vegas, it once started at $50, but Hubert Keller sells one with a fine bottle of Petrus for $600, and at the Paris resort casino Le Burger Brasserie gets $777 for its burger made from Kobe Beef and Maine Lobster with a 100-year aged Balsamico. Want lobster? How about $300-plus at The Palm in Caesars Palace. Want artichoke soup? How about $68 a bowl with black truffles at Guy Savoy upstairs. Guy has often served up a 10-ounce serving of caviar with it that costs $2,300! The best wine list in town is at Charlie Palmert’s Aureole at Mandalay Bay, where a "flying angel" will hunt through the three-story wine tower for a 1900 magnum of Chateau Petrus that will just add $45,000 to your bill! Dinner for a party of 12 at Joel Robuchon in MGM was a mere $20,000 tab! The baked potato which holds Beluga caviar atop a poached egg is just $235! Don’t complain -- just remember that here, a restaurateur will gamble up to $25 million to create a new hotspot!

With so many celebrity super chefs in residence, no wonder you hit the jackpot at dinner these days rather than in the casino! Wolfgang Puck isn’t satisfied with six winners -- he’s just opened a branch of his Beverly Hills CUT steak restaurant here, too! Emeril LaGasse has kicked it up a notch with his new Table 10, joining his Delmonico’s Steak House and New Orleans Fishhouse hot properties. Beloved Food Network star Mario Batali has opened a stunning steakhouse, Carnevino in the Palazzo, and an Enoteca winebar and cold-cuts brasserie in the Venetian. All are new concepts with new approaches to food with unexpected and unseen menu items.

My favorite trendsetter though is the ambitious Martin Heirling, who runs the sensational Sensi restaurant at the Bellagio and has been picked to lead the new food and beverage services at the monstrous MGM CityCenter's 10,600 all-suite four-unit hotel and condo tower compound. Martin uses four separate kitchens to produce different tastes on one plate -- including bread from a clay Tandoori oven! He promoted ‘haute cuisine’ in an informal setting of casual fine dining. He wants more and more restaurants to “eat locally” instead of flying in ingredients from around the world -- except for spices. But his firm vote is for biodynamic produce and wines. “This is a continuation and evolution of the natural and organic approach of past years. It's more serious and reflects a philosophy of growing and harvesting according to nature’s law,” says Martin. “This in itself is then reflected in better quality produce with both vegetables and vines.”

Vegas today is not just about amazing food and service. It's about presentation and clean cooking. If you’re visiting, don’t hesitate to ask the chef to let you into the kitchen and they will happily share their secrets and beliefs of the new Vegas -- the one they believe leads the world with innovations. The ultimate battle is underway -- and the guest always wins!

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