Vegas/Food

We are hardly ever quiet’
By Nicholas Lander

Las Vegas hotels have been opening outposts run by some of the world’s top chefs at such a pace that I felt the time had come to sample them rather than just read about them.

“I’ve been here 13 years,” said the lugubrious waiter at Bartolotta, the excellent Italian seafood restaurant in the Wynn Hotel, as he delivered a particularly authentic Ligurian octopus salad. “Until five years ago Las Vegas could still have been called a ‘buffet town’. But now people definitely come here for the restaurants.”

Judging by the queue I saw outside the entrance to the buffet at the Bellagio Hotel, which must have been several hundred long one Sunday lunchtime, buffets seem no less popular than before. This only served to underline what had made Jean Philippe Teresi, born in St Tropez and formerly at the Louis XV in Monaco, leave the Mediterranean to become general manager of Bradley Ogden’s restaurant in Caesar’s Palace.

“There’s nowhere else in the restaurant world that has the same concentration of visitors in such a small area,” he said. “About 40 million come here every year and most of them spend their entire stay within two miles along the Strip where there are four hotels – here, the Bellagio, Wynn and the MGM Grand – each with annual revenues in excess of a billion dollars. No other city in the world can match that. Not New York, Paris nor even London, I would guess. And we are hardly ever quiet,” he said, with more than a touch of Gallic pride.

The new restaurants have added an extra competitive edge to the hotels, which are investing heavily to outdo one another with the more luxurious restaurants spending millions on construction and decoration.

I certainly could not say that the interiors of either Bartolotta’s restaurant or Joël Robuchon’s establishment in the MGM Grand excited me as much as the food but in both instances the hotel’s management have had the foresight to let each chef be distinctive. Bartolotta’s octopus salad, grilled squid, seafood risotto and lemon sorbet took me straight back to a table in one of those romantic coastal restaurants in southern Italy. At Chez Robuchon, you would hardly know you were on the Las Vegas Strip, the city’s concentrated area of hotels and casinos. There is the black and red interior that has become the leitmotif of his restaurants worldwide, and the approach to service is quintessentially French. Its general manager, Loic Launay, ensures the quality of the ingredients, the precision of the service and the artistry of the bread and desserts that emanate from Kamel Guechida’s pastry kitchen. While prices are high, the weak dollar softens the bill.

Two days on the sizzling Strip, in very high temperatures, prompted two short excursions. The first, a 15-minute taxi ride away, was on the recommendation of a wine merchant in San Francisco and confirmed a local’s description of Las Vegas as a “strip surrounded by strip malls”.

My destination was Saipin Chutima’s Lotus of Siam, located among a plethora of Asian restaurants in a most unassuming lot. But this small restaurant has been a beacon for more than a decade, for its fine Thai food and its fabulous wine list, which places a particular emphasis on German Rieslings. We joined the noon rush for a table and after a 15-minute wait sat down to spicy fishcakes, fried tofu, rice with sausage, peanuts, chilli and ginger and a deep red rice vermicelli curry from the north of Thailand. The latter dish, our Bangkok-born waiter explained, was so specific to that region that he had never eaten it until he came to work here. Lotus of Siam’s interior is basic but the cuisine and hospitality are exceptional.

On another occasion I set out for Summerlin, 2,200 acres owned by the Howard Hughes Corporation and a 25-minute drive from the Strip. Originally intended to be the site of an aircraft factory, it is now home to many of the city’s legal and commercial companies, numerous high-roller homes, golf courses and country clubs and, naturally, a casino or two.

Our destination was Agave Comida y Tequila, the first of two restaurants established by developer Michael Corrigan and his talented chef Matthew Silverman. We chose it because the opportunity to eat authentic Mexican food is still rare outside Mexico. Silverman’s approach, backed by a Mexican brigade only too keen to replicate their grandmothers’ recipes, is bold but authentic, exemplified in his refined mushroom tamales, tuna tostadas and lobster empanadas.

My last port of call was a windowless office in the basement of the MGM Grand belonging to David McIntyre, vice-president of food and beverage. McIntyre oversees the hotel’s $300m annual sales of food and beverage. On one large wall is a plan of the hotel’s vast ground floor, delineating several different cafés, bars and restaurants. A part of his role is to maximise the “revenue per seat per hour” for this entire area. He continues to scour the world for the best chefs to open in his hotel, but believes that Las Vegas may soon be entering a new and distinctive phase. “So many top chefs have come here and in setting up their own restaurants have brought on the skills and techniques of many young, local cooks. Soon they will want to go on and open their own restaurants and that will present some really exciting opportunities.”