Category: Chefs

EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants – Number Two

2. RESTAURANT GUY SAVOY
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ELV note: The only reason Joël Robuchon is Number One on our Top 50 list and Guy Savoy Number two is because the food is slightly more over-the-top at JR. Basically though, on any given night, it’s a toss-up. Around the ELV manse, we like to say that JR is more like a temple of fine dining, while GS is more of a cathedral. (And if you can make out a difference between the two, you’re smarter than we are.)

In an Atlantic Monthly article entitled “Six Rules for Dining Out,” economist Tyler Cowen counseled avoiding any restaurant where “groups of people (especially beautiful women) are laughing loudly and having a good time.” Such an atmosphere indicates people are there for anything but the food.

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The 50 Essential Restaurants – Number One

INTRODUCTION

Here it is food fans: The unbridled, unvarnished, unimpeachable list of the top 50 restaurants in Las Vegas. The essentials. In order of excellence. Unfettered by Max Jacobson’s loathing of all things Japanese, or Al Mancini’s insistence that a hamburger deserves the same respect as haute cuisine.

 

Yes, we have gone from a oligarchy to autocracy, but we at ELV prefer to think about it as a benign dictatorship — one that applauds substance, talent, and hard work over hype.

 

As owners of the book EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants will note, much of the text is taken from our portion of the book. But we have made cuts and edits where appropriate (e.g. Valentino has closed and Marche Bacchus lost its chef and the food there no longer warrants top ten status), and will roll out our current top 10, one at a time, over the next week or so.

THE TOP 10

 

1. JOËL ROBUCHON
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I hate Joël Robuchon and his dastardly henchmen. Especially Claude Le Tohic and Steve Benjamin – I really hate those guys. They are evil wicked men who deserve to die, smothered in a glistening vat of torchon de foie gras of their own making.*

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CARSON KITCHEN is Kerry’s Crowning, Crowd-Pleasing Achievement

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Kerry Simon and I have had a rather prickly relationship over the years. We both like each other on a personal level, but he hasn’t always liked what I’ve written and I haven’t always liked what he has cooked.

That said, we have a certain wary respect for the other’s craft — which usually leads us to warmly greet each other — even if, two minutes after hugs are exchanged, we start debating one of his recipes or one of my sentences.

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