Category: Chefs

VINTNER GRILL

Vintner Grill oenophile update: beginning this week (2.20.09), VG now features 50 wines for under $50 on its list. Bravo…and some of our criticism below should be (re)considered accordingly.

We like everything about the Vintner Grill except the wine list. To our oenophilic sensibilities, it’s unfocused and strangely priced, and there’s too much going on and not enough at the same time.

There’s lots of wine from lots of countries, but look on any single page you’ll find a few bargains, precious few bottles in the $50-80 range, and then a number of big hitters that’ll set you back a least a Benjamin.

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James Beard Awards – Restaurant and Chef Semifinalists 2009

It may seem like a kindergarten pageant….you know, like the kind where everyone gets an award….but a lot of work, thought and teeth gnashing goes into culling the herd of meritorious contenders into the following semifinalists for recognition by the Oscars of the food world.

We at ELV are proud of the increased recognition of Las Vegas’s culinary talent pool represented by these nominations, and have highlighted the deserving nominees below.

Congratulations to: Saipin Chutima (Lotus of Siam), Claude Le Tohic (Joel Robuchon), Kamel Guechida (Joel Robuchon), Paul Bartolotta (Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare), Robert Smith (Picasso), Mitsuo Endo (Raku), Vannessa Garcia (Restaurant Charlie), Sarah Kosikowski (Michael Mina), and the entire crews at Le Cirque and NobHill Tavern, for their worthy nominations

And in the spirit of boosterism and enthusiasm for which he is known, ELV hereby confidently proclaims that no other nominees can hold a candle to our own. (A complete list of all nominees is available after the jump.)

FYI: Finalists will be announced in Chicago at Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill on March 23rd (the first time this has ever happened outside of New York) and the main event is May 4th in the Big Apple. Stay tuned.

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The Trouble With Encore

There are passion restaurants and there are money restaurants. Rarely do the twain ever meet, and asking them to do so in Las Vegas is like expecting a stripper to take a check.

A cynic would say all casino restaurants are only about numbers and cash, but Steve Wynn has tantalized us before with the prospect of great food, generated by a passionate chef, generating lots of dough in the High Mojave. For what was Alex Stratta’s Renoir in the Mirage but an attempt to blend haute cuisine with lowbrow gambling?

Then came the Bellagio in 1998 — a place that sold its soul to the celebrity chef devil (igniting that stampede in the process) — and which took a fair amount of heat from the national food press for pretending to be passionate about food even as its absentee chefs did little more than wave at their operations from 30,000 feet as they flew from coast to coast.

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