Category: Celebrity Chef Hell

Letters of the Month – The Unimpressiveness of Vegas Uncork’d

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ELV note: For the first time in six years, yours truly did not attend a single event at Vegas Uncork’d. In this past half-decade, we have gone from being both a participant and reporter at the event to one whose excitement about it ranks somewhere between our boredom over the interminable NBA playoffs and our disgust about whatever stupid country music award show is in town this week. This makes ELV sad — both for the event and himself — as there was a time he when he felt these four days in May would be the defining event in the history of the Las Vegas dining revolution. Alas, like Camelot, it was a fleeting aspiration that was not meant to be.

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Fear and Loathing in Vegas Uncork’d

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs… Oh wait, this is something else entirely, although I’m fairly certain I listened to “Sympathy for the Devil” at one point, and I recall there being amyl nitrate somewhere.

Tobey Maguire not included

The build up to this story held a great many undertones of personal danger, but mostly calling in favors, tracking down PR types and weaseling my way into whatever it is I could.  My fervor was motivated less by testing my true grit against a weekend of a gluttonous bacchanalia, although I am always eager to do that, but to test my earlier prediction about the Hubert Keller/Sarah Johnson Beer Garden being the best real event (“real” referring to any that isn’t a Michelin starred chef cooking a dozen-by-a-dozen degustation-athons).  Really, honestly, with the trend of overselling the food booth and TV chef selfie events AND making the grievous omission of any Le Cirque/Circo/Sirio things, I would say my prediction had sadly come to fruition.  Grand Tasting: consider the ball dropped.  It all kind of ran together…

Chicken livers, beef and octopus carpaccio, and crudo by... some guys I guess
This strange old French dude grabbed my rump because there was a tiny bottle of champagne in it. True Story.

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NOBU, Negated

Nothing about this place is as good as its reputation. – Seymour Britchky

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Nobu is the perfect example of what happens when a celebrity chef gives up, sells out and cashes in. It is the gastronomic equivalent of a once-innovative cook deciding to abandon his legacy to the highest bidder and spend his retirement padding around his culinary house in a succulent silk robe and savory slippers.

None of this is surprising. By now, everyone knows Las Vegas is where they all come when it’s time to settle back and rake in the cash, because our captive audience of 40 million yearly visitors are credulous enough to buy the hype and settle for what little substance they get. But, not being rookies to the celeb chef rodeo, Eating Las Vegas‘ savvy readers know that it is those customers who ultimately pay for the luxury that these (former) titans of gastronomy and their retainers enjoy.

Las Vegas is also where our brimming-with-cash casinos are more that willing to throw money at an established chef’s brand in hopes it will save them from the food and beverage disasters they inflict upon themselves when left to their own devices (cf. Wynn Hotel/Switch). The money men behind Nobu know this, so this is where they’ve decided to plant his flag one last time time before he sails into the Peruvian-Japanese sunset.

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