Category: Openings

Hot Hostess Watch – Brandy at FLEUR

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Brandy would like everyone to know that Fleur is now open for business in the Mandalay Bay.

And that she makes a great hot toddy.

Or is it that brandy makes a great hot toddy? Or that toddies are best with Brandy?

Or that toddies are best with hotties?

ELV is confused…

…about everything but the fact that she-who-is-named-after-a-spirit-made-by-distilling-wine-grapes, is another in a long line of highly professional hostesses in super-chef Hubert Keller’s restaurants, and that HK, one of our favorite chefs in da woild, is coming to town tonight to greet his fans and supervise the re-opening of this beautiful space.

FLEUR

In the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino

3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89119

702.632.9400

Costas Spiliadis is going to change the way you think about Greek Food

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As you know, ELV and his staff are more than a little disdainful about Greek restaurant food. From coast to coast, it is relentlessly mediocre, boring and trite….and almost always tastes the same. Whether you’re in a Greek diner in Connecticut, or another hackneyed, blue and white-decorated “classic” restaurant, it’s a lead-pipe cinch you’re going to get the same twenty recipes overcooked exactly the same way. (Greek restaurants never met an overcooked piece of fish or meat they didn’t love.)

The reason for this is because, like Indian and Mexican food, the cooks of these cuisines have been, by and large, from the lower socio-economic stratum of their home countries. They came to America to survive and prosper, but not necessarily to create or strictly follow the tenants of the cuisine they remember. In such a way did the doner kebab become that hideous gyro meat featured in Greek joints from Bangor to Malibu, and sorry souvlakis the food Americans most associate with the birthplace of Western civilization.

All of this is about to change. The minute it opens in the Cosmo on December, 15th, Estiatorio Milos will be the best Greek restaurant in Las Vegas, and probably the second best Greek restaurant in the country….right behind the original Milos in Manhattan…and most probably the third best Greek restaurant on the North American continent…. right behind the New York location and the original in Montreal.

Our interview with Spiliadis will appear in next week’s Las Vegas Weekly, but in the meantime, we thought you’d like to see where a couple of Greek gods (with loads of major hair) had lunch when the aforesaid interview was taking place. Why at MOzen, of course…where we chowed down on Indian (dots, not feathers) food, of course.

Turns out Costas is something of a connoisseur of Indian food, and like ELV, considers the tandoori, butter chicken and assorted other highly spiced fare at MOzen to be some of the best he’s ever eaten. It all went down beautifully with one of the great food-focused conversations we’ve ever had, and ended with a tiny sampling of Gianni Santin’s pristine desserts — that were so good we almost forgot about how great Greek food is about to get around here.

ESTIATORIO MILOS

In The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino

3708 Las Vegas, Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.698.7930

www.estiatoriomilos.com

PATISSERIE MANON – So Very Very French

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Do you love good pastries?

We do.

Do you love what the French have done over the past four hundred years to the art of refined sugar, white flour, butter, cream, chocolate and dough?

Let’s face it who doesn’t?

Have you been consistently disappointed with the baked goods at the West Charleston Whole Foods in the past year (ever since it changed suppliers)?

Let’s face it who hasn’t?

Do you hate supermarket bakeries with a passion?

Of course you do.

Assuming all of the above questions were answered in the affirmative (and if you’re reading ELV, we assume you have the brains/good taste to do so) then you need to make a beeline to the space formerly housing Bleu Gourmet (right behind Fleming’s) where Jean-Paul Layden and his wife Rachel have opened a pastry shop that brings superior baked sweets (and savories) to the neighborhoods.

Layden hales from Dunkerque in northern France, and his missus was born in Brittany — making them as French as La Marseillaise. They operate two patisseries in Tahiti, of all places, and apparently thought those environs were too confining for their talents, compared to our humble burg, so east they came to raise Vegas’ pastry IQ.

And raise it they have, with delicate, intense macarons, eclairs from heaven, nice croissant (and pain au chocolate), and a bear claw-like “almond croissant” that is soft, nutty, chewy, and worth going out of your way for. On our croissant-o-meter, these rank a half a click below Payard’s, and maybe a notch less buttery than those at the patisserie just to the west of the entrance to the Gare du Nord in Paris (France, not Kentucky)…but that doesn’t mean they aren’t darn good.

Also worth a trip are the daily quiches and specials, ranging from a béchamel-infused croque monsieur, to the occasional cassoulet.

But there is a problem.

Because the previous operator in this space was operating a restaurant much larger than its lease and business license allowed, the Layden’s have had to re-configure the space and get additional approvals before they can operate a café here, as opposed to just selling their wares over the counter. Everything is on track, but it may still be some days (or weeks) before you can sit down on premises and enjoy these superlative pastries.

In the meantime, you’ll just have to stop by, say “bonjour,” grab a baguette, and experience a little slice of Paris in a town that needs more of them.

PATISSERIE MANON

8751 W. Charleston Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89117

702.586.2666

Also with a Boulder City location:

534 Boulder Highway

Boulder City, NV 89005

702.476.3131

www.patisseriemanon.com