Category: Chefs

BLT BURGER Preview-The Return of Mr. BLT: Laurent Tourondel

He was once the best chef in Vegas. Back when Laurent Tourondel was top toque at Caesar’s Palace (and presiding over the last days of the Palace Court Restaurant from 1996-1998), Vegas had never seen anything like his refined take on French cuisine. Classically trained at Troisgros in Roanne, France, he also experienced immense critical success at the ill-fated Cello in New York, before devoting himself to the more prosaic concerns of building a restaurant empire.

Now he’s two days from opening a 200 seat hamburger restaurant right off the Mirage Casino-in the space formerly home to the famed white tigers of Siegfried and Roy fame – one of whom once tried to make its own burger out of Roy’s face. We’re guessing the cuisine will be a bit less refined than Tourondel’s peekytoe crab soup en gelee (Yup…Nuthin’ gets past EATingLV.com!), but from our sneak peek and taste test of yesterday, the burgers will take you straight back to the classic California Googie diner burgers of the 1950’s, albeit with substantially better beef.

Here’s a preview of the space, and a good look at what goes on in the final hours before the launch of an $8,000,000 burger joint!

MARCHE BACCHUS update

Those who know me know that I’ve complained loudly about the food at Marche Bacchus for the past several years. As much as I liked prior owners Gregoire and Agate Verge, they ran the kitchen here as an afterthought to their wine store. Much of the food seemed Sysco-inspired (not to mention supplied), and their persistence in serving a sub-standard plat des fromage (cheese platter), should’ve been an embarassment, but strangely, never was.

When Rhonda and Jeff Wyatt bought the place last year, the menu improved under Chef Christophe Ithurrize, but still didn’t compete in any way with the bistro classics being churned out by Mon Ami Gabi, much less the ethereal ouefs and pommes and tartes being served at Payard.

Now word comes our way from super-restaurant sleuth and Heat Communications guy Ken Langdon, that one of our favorite chefs, Jean-David Groff-Daudet has become top toque at this neighborhood institution in Desert Shores. We had no idea a Daudet play was in sway when we first reported his foray (at Pamplemousse) in an essay of this mainstay….much to our dismay.

But I’ll try not to flay, as Daudet’s array at Marche will cause an hooray, providing he stays, and plays in the ways of the great Francais.

He was a great chef, as chefs go, and as chefs go, he went (and then came back again.)

EATingLV.com has it on good information that the talented, inventive, passionate, dedicated and baby-faced Adam Sobel, has re-joined Bradley Ogden as chef-consultant. Sobel, who is in his late 20’s but looks like he’s 14 to us, began his Las Vegas cooking career as sous chef at B.O. before seeking more exotic climes at the stoves of Guy Savoy; from where he departed for an ill-fated stint at the (now) pathetically dumbed-down and overpriced Company. Now he returns to the nest created by him and Bryan Ogden, with hopes of sustaining the glory that kitchen has been known for. If anyone can do it, we’re betting on Adam.

Click here to read Al Mancini’s current review of the post-Sobel Company in Citylife Las Vegas. Methinks Al is being kind. What started as an innovative restaurant (featuring Sobel’s cuisine with the able assistance of David Varley and Marcel “Call Me Wolverine” Vigneron) has devolved into just another overdecorated and overpriced Vegas steakhouse. You have been warned.