Click here to read our most recent interview in Business Insider about Vegas’ top tables for high rollers and other well-heeled gourmands.
As our loyal readers know, we could’ve easily listed 50, but the author, Matthew Kassel, wanted to keep the list within the range of lucky dice rolls.
FYI: this is the fourth interview/article we’ve done in the past couple of months for a national or international ‘zine about the fine dining scene in our humble burg. Each of them, including The Guardian in the United Kingdom, have wanted to know where the best and most expensive tables in in town are. No one was asking such questions two years ago.
Does this portend a possible resurgence of our fine dining scene? Are better times ahead? Can ELV look forward to more food and wine bacchanalian nights in his future — in the manner to which he has become accustomed?
Hope springs eternal.
I hope it does mean that we can look forward to better dining experiences, John. An experience that means it’s more about the customers than the staff; which includes the chef.
It sounds like your a brat and an real asshole. I waited tables while I was in college. I can tell you right now that the customers happiness is what every server wants. I am from Texas and we only got $2.10 an hour. It was all about our tips. I have graduated in Healthcare. I have been in Healthcare for 15 years. People that work in the resteraunt field, including kitchen staff, – want you to have a good experience. Severs are just delivering what the kitchen staff put out. DO NOT TAKE IT OUT ON THE SERVER if your food is bad, they are the frontline.
If the Chef sucks then there is a problem. I guess I am going on the Southern thing. It’s all about the staff and chef because if they don’t come together then thre is no team to provide good food and cust6omer service.
If the chef puts out crappy food it is not the servers fault. Please at least tip them.
So if a customer has a bad restaurant experience, what? As long as you get your tip all is well?
Listen, toots, I have never worked in a place that didn’t fall over itself trying to make sure that the customer’s last words were “I’ll be back.” For small, family-run operations unhappy customers signal a quick end to business. Even with various enticements it is difficult to convince people to come in for the first time.
It was with a very intimate understanding of why the customer is always right that I was taught to restrain myself from being a smartarse and to listen patiently when a potential customer gave menu suggestions, decorating tips, asked what flavour is garlic bread, when 10% of a large group brings outside food in to eat (the remaining 90% eat in) or suggested that the prices could be lower. To name just a few…
It is the self-important, self-absorbed attitude you display that I specifically referred to when I suggested hope for an end to serving staff and chefs putting themselves above customers. A “Help Wanted” sign is all it takes to recruit either a chef or a server. And both species are truly expendable in terms of employment. The customer, however, is not so easy to entice.
If you’re feeling underappreciated and deep down you really know that you do not have the time, energy or emotional resources to cope with both constructive and non-constructive criticism then the restaurant business is the last place you should be trying to make a living. As for your 15 years in healthcare: the state of the healthcare industry in the USA tells that story.
Nice list, John, but Valentino’s fine-dining room is still one of the best places to drop a grand or so if you desire. Maybe guests who do the same at Bar Masa and are still hungry can swing by and see Luciano for some truffles and Barolo.