…received two Michelin stars this year (and last). It deserves three.

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ELV doesn’t know what and when Michelin’s inspectors ate there, but they’d be hard pressed to find a flaw in the food or the service if they got anything approaching the meals we’ve had in this temple of gastronomy in Caesars Palace.

Of course having the Grand Fromage there himself (when we dined last week) doesn’t hurt, but after a dozen visits, we’ve never noticed a drop off in quality when Mon. Savoy is off patrolling his five restaurants in Gay* Paree.

Fun Food Fact Number One: When we last ate in the Parisian location, we did so expressly to make a comparsion with Vegas’s version of Savoy’s cooking. The two meals we had — two continents, 5,500 miles and one month apart — were remarkably similar in service, taste and tone. Paris got the service nod , but we prefer this Savoy’s wine list for its breadth, depth, and pricing. Vegas’s list is phenomenal for the number of bottles it offers from around the globe in all price ranges. It is truly a masterpiece of oenophilic delights — many for well under a hundred dollars.

ELV’s cross-continental trek to compare the Savoys took place a year before Colman Andrews and Alan Richman did the same for Gourmet and GQ magazines. Like Richman, ELV found the bread at Vegas’s GS to be superior in variety and taste to that in Paris’s GS (Sacre Bleu!) Unlike either of them, ELV paid his own way and didn’t earn thousands of dollars for a magazine article.

Jealous? Us? Nahhhh….

Fun Food Fact Number Two: In Paris as we were enjoying a freshly killed, wild game bird (a woodcock if memory serves) we bit into a piece of buckshot, displayed it to Mon. Savoy, and he beamed proudly and said: “I told you it was just killed today!” Last Thursday night, as we were enjoying our Scottish grouse, and recounting the Parisian buck(bird)shot** incident to our dining companions, the exact same thing happened. (You can view the single pellet of birdshot perched on our plate in the pictures above.)

Again, Mon. Savoy couldn’t have been prouder, and again ELV couldn’t have been more impressed — both with the wildness and wild taste of the gamebird.

Savoy’s food embodies the modernization of French cuisine. French flare with Asian minimalism, if you will. His dishes are exquisitely rendered, technically perfect, and brought forth with a lightness that sacrifices nothing in the flavor department.

La Cuisine Francais, whether haute or bourgeois, is about the intensification and extraction of flavors from its primary ingredients. Savoy can extract and intensify to an Escoffier fare thee well; but he displays his wares with almost Japanese-like precision. For an old school guy, this Guy has some decidedly new-school ideas…as you’ll see from these tasty snaps.

To read or hear other commentaries we’ve done on Restaurant Guy Savoy Las Vegas, click here, here, here, and here.

A note on pricing. The Full Monty at either GS is very expensive: 15 courses for $290 here and between $300-350 in France, depending on the exchange rate. You can order a la carte and reduces that tariff by 50% or more, but any way you slice it, meal for two will run at least $300. Nibbles from the Bubbles and Bites menu in the bar cuts that bill in half — and keep in mind, no matter what you order, there will always be a complimentary treat (or three) brought from the kitchen for your amuse-ment. We expected to pay for our meal last week, and offered to pay, but Messrs. Savoy insisted that we not — probably as a “merci beaucoup” for the nice things ELV has written about him and his restaurants in the past. In that past, ELV has spent many hundreds of dollars numerous times in the restaurant. We left a $180 tip. It wasn’t enough.

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* As in: full of felicity and bliss.

** ELV was erroneously referring to it as “buckshot” to his dining companions. Buckshot is generally used to kill large mammals; birdshot is much smaller so as not to damage the fowl as much (as it’s killing it(?)). In dressing any game bird, working around the flesh to find all the pellets is difficult. Even the most trained hands will miss one now and again.

RESTAURANT GUY SAVOY

In Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino

3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.731.7286

www.guysavoy.com