Category: Chefs

The Bocuse D’Or 2017 is Calling ELV

http://finedininglovers.cdn.crosscast-system.com/BlogPost/l_12831_Winners-Bocuse-d-Or-Budagpest.jpg(Denmark took the top prize in ’15)

Like a sailor to the sound of sirens, a moth to a flame, or an inveterate Francophile to a slice of jambon persillé:

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….ELV hears the call of the Bocuse d’Or to him every other year. Ten years ago — before social media, before this blog, before the crash of the economy, and before he added 15 pounds to his waistline —  he attended the event. At the time, ELV vowed to return, only to have the Great Recession put a damper on his plans.

Now we’re going back — leaving Las Vegas today, in fact — to see the 30th anniversary of world’s greatest cooking competition in person.

If you don’t know what all the shouting is about, the video below will give you a taste of what it entails. Two-man teams from countries compete to invent and cook the best dishes they can based upon two pre-determined ingredients — or the “imposed main product” as they’re referred to in the competiton. This year’s ingredients — Bresse chicken and shellfish — are very very French (imagine that?) — and challenge the chefs to riff on the classic Lyonnaise recipe for chicken with crayfish.

In addition, there is a new challenge this year: the chefs must present a creation that is 100% vegetal.   They have 5 hours and 35 minutes (not a second more) to cook, plate and present large platters of their creations:

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…to a lineup of the most famous French chefs in the world. When these top toques parade in to take their seats at the judging table:

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….you can feel sphincters tighten all over the auditorium.

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It’s really something to behold (the cooking, the crowds and the competition, not the sphincter-tightening), and the video below (from day one of the competition from two years ago), will give you a good idea of the intensity involved.

The competition takes place on January 24-25 in Lyon, and we will be there with a front row seat

So, au revoir for now, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook to chart both the event and our culinary adventures in France (and Germany and Switzerland), over the next ten days.

We’ll see you back on this site in a couple of weeks, full of French food and savoir faire!

Vive La France!

Bah Humbug!

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‘Tis the season to be jolly, isn’t it? The time of year for rejoicing and celebrating; for toasting the year’s ending with reminiscences, good cheer, and hale and hearty fellowship. Am I right?

Nope, not this year. Not by a long shot. Why? Because lovers of good food downtown are in mourning.  Because Bradley Manchester’s Glutton closed its doors for good last night, after just twenty months of operation. Because the number of good places to eat in downtown Las Vegas just got cut in half. Six days before Christmas.

That means Manchester and his small crew of chefs and bartenders and waiters are out of work, less than a week from what is supposed to be the happiest day of the year. The day of the year when gifts are bestowed and glasses are raised in celebration of the year’s past, and in hopes of a prosperous new one.

Not for Glutton, and not for downtown. Because the closing of Glutton portends dire days ahead for the downtown dining scene. Soon enough, a chain restaurant called Eureka! (exclamation point essential) will open in the space once occupied by The Beat coffee shop, and the marketing muscle it will bring to the scene will no doubt further endanger the survival of the small, locally-owned stores like Carson Kitchen, The Smashed Pig, Bõchõ, and La Comida — places that, like Glutton, had  foodies all atwitter just a couple of years ago.

Truth be told, we were never fond of the name, or the logo of Glutton. The name sent all the wrong messages, and the logo looked like some cheap eatery you’d find in a food court. But from our very first bites back on April 10, 2015, we were taken by the place. Manchester’s concept was everything people say they want in a restaurant: intimate, local, chef-driven, and delicious. The size was right, the corner location attractive, and the open kitchen/bar/dining room just the sort of Millennial-friendly space that the post-recession zeitgeist seemed to call for. He also had a solid mixology program as well as what might have been the best burger in town.

Alas, it was not enough. “I strongly stand behind the product we offered. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get enough consistent business through the doors,” is how Bradley put it when I asked him what went wrong. Sometimes, though, quality isn’t enough. To succeed in the restaurant business, you’ve got to capture people’s imagination, and perhaps that’s where Glutton fell short.

Or perhaps downtown Las Vegas is about to get the (boring, derivative, franchise) restaurants it deserves.

 

The Return of Carla Pellegrino and BRATALIAN

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Carla Pellegrino is a force of nature.  She is half Brazilian, half Italian and all about food as a metaphor for love. Anyone who’s ever spent even five minutes with her knows that she wears her heart on her sleeve, and that her heart is also in the kitchen. These days, after a two year absence to Miami, both her sleeves and her soul are cooking up a storm at Bratalian – a Neapolitan gem of a restaurant that has returned from the brink and, once again, gives everyone in the neighborhood a reason to go out to eat.

Within weeks of coming back to town last summer, after her south Florida sojourn, Carla learned that her restaurant had been wrecked by a truck driving through its front window. (Luckily, it was closed at the time.) What she hoped would be a few weeks of repairs turned into two and half months, and it wasn’t until late October that Henderson could once again taste the best Italian food ever to grace its borders.

Since coming to Las Vegas in 2009 (to open Rao’s in Caesars Palace with her then-husband Frank Pellegrino) Carla has enriched our culinary scene, and swum against the tide of boring, corporate restaurants  that line Eastern Boulevard – places serving  food that tastes like it was cooked up by a bunch of accountants.  She is a hands-on, classically trained chef whose stunning good looks belie a passion for food and a finely-tuned palate.  From your first bites – be they of a textbook-perfect Caprese salad or gorgeous tortellini en brodo – you will know that you are no longer in franchise-land.  Her spaghetti al’aglio, olio & peperocino (with garlic, peppers and oil) is a study in the art of pasta minimalism, and just one of many that will have you dropping your fork in appreciation.

Protein lovers will have no complaints either, as the hot and sweet sausages and veal scallopini alla saltimbocca take a back seat to no one’s. Saltimbocca means “jump in the mouth” and that’s exactly what this thinly pounded veal chop does, dripping as it is with sage, prosciutto and melted mozzarella. When it’s on the menu, don’t miss the baked lobster “oreganata” – a split beauty of a crustacean beast, packed with oregano-scented stuffing. Look around the quaint space and you can almost imagine that you’re dining in a tucked-away trattoria in Naples (replete with laundry hanging from the ceiling). Close your eyes and you’ll taste Italian food the way it’s supposed to be: made with love, respect, and good groceries.

Welcome back, Carla!

BRATALIAN

10740 South Eastern Ave. #155

Henderson, NV 89052

702.454.0104

http://www.bratalian.com/