Congratulations to Saipin Chutima and Picasso, and its Master Sommelier Robert Smith, for being nominated as finalists for the 2011 James Beard Awards.
Chutima is nominated for the third year in a row (if memory serves) in the Best Chef Southwest category, while this is at least the third time Smith and Picasso have reached the final round. (Continue after the jump for the complete list of finalists in all categories.)
Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. (The best is the enemy of the good.) – Voltaire
There are passion restaurants and there are money restaurants. ALEX — the jewel in the supposed crown of the Wynn hotel — was supposed to be both, but was unceremoniously shut down on short (ten days) notice, despite being the very embodiment of the former, but (apparently) failing as the latter. What really went on behind the scenes leading up to its untimely demise will probably never be known, but the shudder has been felt by the entire Vegas food world (that now extends around the globe), and provides the perfect catalyst to review, and speculate about, what has happened to dining in restaurants, in Las Vegas, over the past seventeen years.
ELV note: The following comes from our Facebook exchange with Eric Gladstone about the whys and wherefores of ALEX’s closing in the Wynn tomorrow night, and what it means for Las Vegas’ dining scene. Consider it a supplement to Gladstone’s article this week in the Las Vegas Weekly about the demise of this short lived (May 2005-January 2011) grande dame.
Dear ELV,
The patron who would best appreciate Restaurant Alex is not the patron Wynn/Encore is looking to attract anymore. Unless he’s bringing his 20-something son or daughter along, with access to the credit card [Speaking of the credit card, they might want to note that—specials aside--.fine dining price points certainly haven’t gone anywhere—Lakeside Grill’s entrées average in the $50 range. Perhaps linen suppliers are the most endangered species in the equation.] It’s hard to recall any example in modern Las Vegas history of a property changing its customer focus so dramatically.
Frederic Robert — pastry chef extradordinaire — co-author of Alain Ducasse Desserts, and the man who was most responsible for putting the Wynn/Encore pastry/bread/chocolate/desserts on the world’s culinary map, had his last day at the patisserie stoves last Friday.
ELV has no idea what’s going on over at Wynn/Encore…but at this point we’ve asked the good p.r. folks over there to give us a list of every great chef who has, or is about to be canned or shoved aside, so as to make all this bad news easier on our tender psyche.
Because this is like being nibbled to death by minnows….
The Las Vegas Weekly is reporting that ALEX — the Michelin 2-star, grand dame deluxe restaurant helmed by über-chef Alex Stratta at the Wynn — will serve its final foie gras and beatific bites of Stratta’s Franco-Italian delights on January 15.
It was 1978. ELV was 25 and just starting his career as a trial lawyer. He was invited to a cocktail party at a swanky home full of good looking, professional people (most five to ten years older than him) and couples who looked liked they had their shit together (most of them, he would learn, didn’t). He would probably never be healthier or better looking than at that particular moment (smarts would come later), and someone asked if he wanted a cocktail…from a real bar…not a draw from a keg or a shot from a cheap bottle. This song started playing at that very moment, and John Anthony Curtas felt the tingle, the fear and the exhilaration of adulthood washing over him for a few seconds, and for the first time in his life.
Gerry Rafferty (1947-2011)
R.I.P.
Sources close to ELV have told him that Woo (in the Palazzo), Full Ho (on Jones) and Ciao Ciao (the 34-screen-sports-bar-posing-as-a-pizzeria) have all closed.
In honor of the passing of Leslie Nielsen (1926-2010), our staff thought you’d enjoy a clip of the TV show that inspired The Naked Gun movies:
R.I.P Lt. Frank Drebin
“…are you talking existential being, or anthropomorphic deity?”
Dateline: Town Square Mall (that is neither square, nor in any town)
Effective two weeks ago, Brian Howard, chef extraordinaire, has left Nu Sanctuary.
Also gone is front of the house G.M. John Anthony.
Restaurant reviews, quips, picks and pans-with some seriously salivating history-from the man who eats his way through Sin City every day.
