Category: The List

Hot Hostesses Celebrate the Top 25 Essential Restaurants of Las Vegas

In honor of us reaching the halfway point of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants, our staff thought a celebration was in order. And by “celebration” we mean posting more pictures of the incandescently torrid, steamy, loosen-you-collar caliente hostesses we’ve been meeting lately.

Leading off, we have Julia:

…who always greats you with a smile at Rose.Rabbit.Lie.

But RRL is so trés chaud these days, one hot hostess is not enough. That’s why Samantha and Kassidy:

…are always on hand at a second hostess desk to lead you to your table among the jugglers and acrobats that seem to accost you at every turn. (To be fair, many seem to enjoy the festivities here, but we think all the noise just distracts you from Wes Holton’s exceptional food.)

If, like ELV, it’s serenity you seek with your sustenance, then we suggest a seating by Hailey:

…at Chef Johnny Church’s MTO Cafe downtown.

Regardless of your savory or sweet sagaciousness, all four of these gals saucily scan and scamper to safeguard your satisfaction preceding whatever saturnalia you seek.

And for that, we salute them.

The List:

1. Joël Robuchon

2. Restaurant Guy Savoy

3. L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon

4. Raku/Sweets Raku

5. Carnevino

6. Twist by Pierre Gagnaire

7. Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare

8. Kabuto Edomae Sushi

9. Picasso

10. Estiatorio Milos

11. Yonaka Modern Japanese

12. China Poblano

13. Julian Serrano

14. Sage

15. Allegro

16. China MaMa

17. Mizumi

18. Le Cirque

19. db Brasserie

20. Giada – The Restaurant (on Earth – The Planet)

21. Rose.Rabbit.Lie.

22. Yusho

23. Carson Kitchen

24. Spago

25. Lotus of Siam

Summer Doldrums

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It’s not even officially Summer yet and the mercury has already topped 100 degrees for a solid week.

ELV is glad the days are heating up, because that’s the only thing that’s hot in Vegas these days.

Our restaurant scene may seem muy caliente to some — with Daniel Boulud, Guy Fieri, Mathias Merges and Giada What’s-Her-Name all opening new joints in the last two months — but it’s still pretty boring with a capital “B” from where we’re sitting.

Continue reading “Summer Doldrums”

Our Favorite Italians – Restaurant Division

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As long as we’re thinking like an Italian these days, this might be a good time to point you to ELV’S FAVORITE ITALIAN RESTAURANTS (Las Vegas Division).

The Top Five are, in order:

1. (toss up) Allegro (for Neapolitan cooking at its finest)/B & B Ristorante (for the best pasta in Vegas)

3. Carnevino – possibly the best steakhouse in the country; certainly the best Italian steakhouse in the country.

4. Rao’s – Italian-American cooking at its finest

5. Buddy V’s – a worthy newcomer that, like Rao’s, does its Italian-American ancestry proud.

Special Honorable Mention:  Nakamura-Ya – which is technically a Japanese restaurant, but which does pasta better than just about any true Italian restaurant not named one of the above.

Some of you might be wondering about the omissions of perennial favorites Circo and Sirio, to which we can only say: one is closing soon (Circo) and Sirio is now being run exclusively by its hotel’s F & B department, with nary a Maccioni on site, save for an occasional p.r. appearance. None of these developments bodes well for the future of upscale, Italian eats in our humble burg.

Indeed, when considered along with the recent, without-fanfare closing of Valentino at the Venetian, and the shifting fortunes of whatever is going on at Piero Selvaggio’s flagship in Santa Monica, one might conclude that sophisticated Italian cooking is going the way of French haute cuisine in fast becoming a gastronomic artifact, as the great food of this gourmet mecca gets drowned under a sea of red sauce.

Which leads us to:

ELV’S WORST ITALIAN RESTAURANTS

The Bottom 5 are, in order:

1)-5) EVERY ITALIAN RESTAURANT IN EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD IN LAS VEGAS

Face it. They’re all terrible and you know it.