Category: Chefs

PINOT Envy Times Deux

ELV note: In keeping with our efforts to keep this website as tasty as ever, the staff at Eating Las Vegas has decided to try something new in the restaurant reviewing biz, to wit – having two critics analyze the same meal from their disparate viewpoints, the better to have you devour and delectate  their various disseminations. Given his seniority, Mr. Curtas shall be the first to weigh in, followed by young Wilburn, with whom he shared a memorable repast in the past week.

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“How can a restaurant that’s so good be so under the radar?” is the question I kept asking myself throughout my tasting menu at Pinot Brasserie. Then I realized I was to blame….along with Joachim Splichal.

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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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Top Chef Casting Call Tomorrow

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I asked Hunter Braun — casting director for the next season of Top Chef — if casting the show was getting harder now that the show has completed ten seasons. Without missing a beat, he immediately said, “Yes and no, people now have a lot of preconceptions about what we are looking for, or think that losing for some silly reason will hurt them in their jobs or reputations. But basically, we always have been about finding the chefs with the best technical merit and creativity. Personality is important, but we’d rather have someone who is bad ass in the kitchen and not so TV ready, rather that the other way around.”

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