Author: John Curtas

We’re Baaaack….

….but still swamped with bizy bidness days and gourmet nights until next week.

Sorry about all the spam comments, but both ELV and his staff:

have been out of their respective towns, and too preoccupied to monitor the site .

Will try to get some tasty snaps from our New York trip (and the Beard awards) up today.

Congratulations to Claude Le Tohic for his winning Best Chef Southwest at the Beards — the second winner in a row from Las Vegas (Paul Bartolotta won last year). Nominees Rick Moonen and Saipin Chutima were also in The Big Apple for the ceremony, were beaming with delight the whole time, and couldn’t have been more gracious about the result.

Also present: Kamel Guechida, who lost out for Best Pastry Chef to Nicole Plue of Redd in Yountville in a severe miscarriage of justice. (In case you’re wondering, ELV has eaten at Redd, had Plue’s desserts and considers them not in the same league as Guechida’s creations at Joel Robuchon and L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon.) Adam Sobel and Gerald Chin from RM Upstairs were also in da house, as was Eric Klein of Spago, Bill Chutima of Lotus of Siam, Paul Bartolotta, Cosmopolitan President John Unwin, Greg Waldron, Amy Rosetti, Katie Conway and others ELV is probably forgetting due to his hangover.

Geez Louise…we’re starting to sound like Norm!

All in all, Las Vegas was well-represented.

Highlights of the night for yours truly: chatting up Jean-Georges Vongerichten, having our picture taken with Jacques Pepin — the man who taught us to cook, kibbitzing with Daniel Boulud, catching Thomas Keller all alone munching on a taco, chewing the fat with Bruce Seidel of the Food Network, slumming in the Press Room, and watching Daniel get sprayed with champagne at his Bar Boulud after-party.

And splitting some great Jewish food with The Great Dolinsky at 1:00 am at the Carnegie Deli — including a sandwich that was as big as both of our sizable noggins: The image “http://api.ning.com/files/g6HA401kyLus99gd6o1JyANV-c*9SJxqNwyy5xSZy248RGxREqyCt6iLT-GNMNv-GVl2QldBS9aIlNR3Zi71ssCuiw7jVhU3/CarnagieNY.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

In case you missed it, here are the winners:

  • Best New Restaurant: Marea, New York City, NY
  • Outstanding Chef: Tom Colicchio, Craft, New York City, NY
  • Outstanding Pastry Chef: Nicole Plue, Redd, Yountville, CA
  • Outstanding Restaurant: Daniel, New York City, NY
  • Outstanding Restaurateur: Keith McNally, New York City, NY
  • Outstanding Service: Alinea, Chicago, IL
  • Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional: John Shafer and Doug Shafer, Napa, CA
  • Outstanding Wine Service: Bernard Sun, Jean Georges, New York City, NY
  • Rising Star Chef of the Year: Timothy Hollingsworth, The French Laundry, Yountville, CA
  • Best Chef – Great Lakes: Koren Grieveson, Avec, Chicago, IL
  • Best Chef – Mid-Atlantic: Jeff Michaud, Osteria, Philadelphia, PA
  • Best Chef – Midwest: Alexander Roberts, Restaurant Alma, Minneapolis, MN
  • Best Chef – New York City: Daniel Humm, Eleven Madison Park, New York City, NY
  • Best Chef – Northeast: Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier, Arrows, Ogunquit, ME
  • Best Chef – Northwest: Jason Wilson, Crush, Seattle, WA
  • Best Chef – Pacific: David Kinch, Manresa, Los Gatos, CA
  • Best Chef – South: Michael Schwartz, Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink, Miami, FL
  • Best Chef – Southeast: Sean Brock, McCrady’s, Charleston, SC
  • Best Chef – Southwest: Claude Le Tohic, Joël Robuchon at MGM Grand, Las Vegas, FL

ELV Taking Break – The Food World Mourns

To all our devoted readers, foodies, fans, acolytes, adversaries and occasional commenters:

For the next week to ten days, ELV will have precious little time to eat and post about his experiences amongst the restaurants of Las Vegas because:

1) He has to earn a living, has worked all weekend on a particularly nasty bit of bad faith litigation against State Farm Insurance Company, and will be tied up in deposition for the next two days;

2) On Wednesday, the Food Network is flying him to Los Angeles for a taping;

3) On Thursday, his chosen profession as a lawyer-at-law calls him once again into a courtroom for a nasty little landlord/tenant kerfuffle (involving, of all things, a restaurant);

4) Friday, he leaves for a few days in the Big Apple where he’ll be attending the James Beard Awards next Monday night (expect a lot of Facebook-ing and Twitter-ing on this, though);

5) He returns to Vegas, hungover and happily exhausted next Tuesday night, just in time for the start of Vegas Uncork’d (ditto).

6) He’ll probably rest his liver for a day or so before eating and drinking himself silly again for the four days of Uncork’d events.

So the posts will be few and far between for the forseeable future.

But if you can’t live without your daily dose of ELV, follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Where, we assure you, ELV will continue impart the erudition, information, infuriating opinions and sophomoric humor for which he is known, to obsessive and interested foodies everywhere. (Expect the tasty snaps to be of much lower quality, however.)

Bon appetit to all, and see you at Uncork’d!

BAR + BISTRO – First Bites

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Ordinarily we’d say Las Vegas needs another Eye-talian restaurant like ELV needs another ex-wife.

But Downtown is desperate, and starving, for a non-hotel eatery that gains traction with locals and tourists alike. And if spaghetti and meatballs will do the trick, more power to Chef Franco Spinelli.

The menu is unchallenging to a fault, but will fit many a Las Vegan’s dining sensibilities like a well-worn, pomodoro-stained t-shirt.

And we found ourselves taken with the spinach salad — using good greens, lightly dressed, and adorned with strips of smoky duck breast. Mad Man Mancini liked (but didn’t love) his crab cakes — and a single bite confirmed his opinion. He found his linguine with clams a bit dry, and it could have been clammier, but on the whole was a decent rendition.

The worst thing about the meal: Black Angus meatballs that were seasoning-free. The best: a moist, dense, sinfully rich chocolate “souffle” that straddled a delicious line between being molten and cake-y within. Made in-house, it was so criminally good that we made Spinelli take it away from us, lest we finish the whole thing and lick the plate.

This place is finding its sea legs, so we’ll give it time. As you can see, owner Wes Myles has big plans (designed by Jawa Studios) to open the restaurant to the street and finally implement the “bar” portion of the joint. (The liquor license was just approved yesterday.)

Once the place is finished (in about three months), it should be eye-popping.

We hope the food follows suit.

Our lunch for two, of all the food you see above and no booze, came to $56 + $13 tip.

BAR + BISTRO @ The Arts Factory

107 East Charleston Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89104

702.202.6060