Category: Zines

The Top 100 Independent Restaurants 2010

R&I’s Top 100 Independent Restaurants 2010: The Rankings

The highest-grossing independent restaurants in the United States had combined food-and-beverage sales of $1.37 billion last year, significantly off from the previous year’s aggregate of $1.52 billion.

Kelly Killian — Restaurants & Institutions, March 29, 2010

(ELV note: Vegas has 18 of the top 100 money-making restaurants in the U.S. of A., including Tao, by far the number one grossing restaurant with over $59 mil in sales. Most of our big hotel behemoths — places seating between 200+ diners — shoot for revenues of around a $1mil/month. Recently closed places like Restaurant Charlie and David Burke were well under those projections . In Charlie’s case, his gross revenues for ’09 were under $4 mil. — not bad in any other city in America, but a death knell here.)

Click after the jump to view the entire list.

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Are High Alcohol Wines On Way Out?

(ELV note: This article appears in the current issue of John Mariani’s The Virutal Gourmet found at www.johnmariani.com.)

p.s. ELV has been complaining about high alcohol red wines (both new world and old) for years.

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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

`Tiresome’ High-Alcohol Wines Face Backlash as Buyers Wake Up

by John Mariani

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had just enjoyed a glass of white wine with some seafood and the next course was lamb, with which was served a big red Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Trouble was, this was lunch, and I spent the rest of the afternoon asleep.
True, the older one gets the less one should drink at lunch, but the real culprit was the red’s 14.5 percent alcohol, a level made popular by the sun-burned Napa Valley blockbusters and California cult wines that delighted many U.S. wine critics since they emerged in the late 1970s.
Robert Parker (right), publisher of The Wine Advocate, raved about big “plummy” high-alcohol red wines with “gobs of fruit,” encouraging California winemakers to go for higher and higher alcohol levels. Some labels now list 17 percent, which may actually be a degree or higher in the bottle — closer to Port than wine.


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Around the World in 12 Meals – in Las Vegas Weekly

We’ve been writing a lot for the Las Vegas Weekly lately, and loved what editor Sarah “The Feldbergian” Feldberg did with this layout, so we thought we’d share it with Eating Las Vegas readers.
Here is the link to the article on the Weekly’s website, or  keep reading if you want to enjoy this colorful tribute to the world of dining available in our humble burg.
(ELV note: Unless he’s had a sex change operation in the last week, we believe the chef’s name at Julian Serrano is Julian Serrano, not “Julina” Serrano as printed in the Weekly. ELV awaits confirmation of this, but believes he’s on all fours in sticking with the facts as he knows them.)

[ Spanish ]

Julian Serrano Inside Aria
3730 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 230-2742

Julian Serrano, the Madrid-born chef of Picasso at the Bellagio, pays homage to his native cuisine at this CityCenter destination. The restaurant is stocked with tastes of Spain, like jamón Ibérico pata negra—cured ham that’s sliced straight off the leg in most Spanish home kitchens and is so ubiquitous it could practically double as currency. Serrano’s tapas nod to traditional cooking and modern dining with classic dishes like patatas bravas and croquetas alongside innovative, molecular fare. Dine here the way the Spanish do, snacking slowly and washing everything down with plenty of sherry or red wine. –Sarah Feldberg

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