Tag: Desert Companion Magazine

Strip Restaurant of the Year – MICHAEL MINA

Ed. note: This year’s Desert Companion award for Strip Restaurant of the Year goes to an old reliable with a new format.  No matter how it’s presented, the seafood is always impeccably fresh, while the 20 year old restaurant itself has aged like a fine wine. As usual, click here to read about this award in its original format. Bon appetit!

Restaurants grow old in one of two ways: They either stick with a formula that works or they reinvent themselves. Somehow, the new Michael Mina has managed to do both. It is a testament to Mina as a chef, and his team, that it’s been able to do so both seamlessly and swimmingly. In doing so, Michael Mina the chef has returned to his roots, and his restaurant has re-announced itself as our finest seafood emporium.

At first glance, you can be excused for thinking not a lot has changed. It’s always been one of the prettiest restaurants in Las Vegas (thank designer Tony Chi for that) with lighting that flatters both the customers and the food. Mina made his name by treating big hunks of pristine fish like land-locked proteins. He popularized pairing pinot noir wine sauce with salmon, and marrying tuna and foie gras.

These sorts of land-sea fusions are everywhere these days, but they were a very big deal in the 1990s, and Mina’s Aqua (first in San Francisco, then in Bellagio) was an early trendsetter. Even now, he and his crew see marine proteins as umami-rich sea meat, rather than as delicate swimmers barely to be trifled with. Where the Italians and Greeks dress their seafood with little more than a squeeze of lemon, and the French subtly nap theirs with wine and butter, Mina looks at a fish as something to be celebrated with sauces and spices.

The new Michael Mina has gone large-format, and it’s a sight to behold. Every night, six to eight whole fish are displayed before you, each begging to be grilled over applewood, broiled and draped with black beans, or deep-fried and adorned with coconut-green curry. The lighter-fleshed varieties (snapper, sea bass, and striped bass) do well with this spicy coating, while fresh-off-the-boat John Dory and kampachi get dressed in more intense ways.

(Smoked trout with caviar cream)

In keeping with the times, things have lightened up a bit — the only French sauce offered is the mustard beurre blanc (with the phyllo-crusted sole), but Mina can’t resist coating a strongly-smoked trout with a river of Meyer lemon-caviar cream (above). If those aren’t filling enough, his old-school (and justifiably famous) lobster pot pie awaits, bathed in a truffled brandy cream sauce.

(Caviar parfait)

The only problem is there may now be too many great choices on this menu. Executive Chef Nicholas Sharpe and General Manager Jorge Pagani (who’s been with the operation for 17 years) suggest toggling back and forth between Mina’s famous dishes and these new fresh fish offerings to build your best meal. Pagani says there would be a revolt among his legions of regulars if certain standards (e.g., the tuna tartare, caviar parfait (pictured above), that pot pie, or phyllo-wrapped sole) were taken off the menu. And why should they be? They are classics for a reason, and just like this superbly re-imagined restaurant, they will never go out of style.

Restaurant(s) of the Year 2018

Ed. note: It’s that time of the year, food fans: time for the Desert Companion magazine’s restaurant awards, a.k.a. the only restaurant awards that count. For almost 20 years we’ve been handing these out, and unlike others in our humble burg, these are the result of meticulous eating, research and writing, not plagiarized listicles (Eater, Thrillist), ballot stuffing (the Review-Journal), or crowd-sourced nonsense (Yelp). Since I started to whole shebang back in the late 90s (at KNPR – Nevada Public Radio), I usually get the honor of writing the Restaurant of the Year and Chef of the Year entries. Back in the day, I was a committee of one, now, the candidates get thoroughly picked over, re-hashed, strained, refined and clarified (by me, Editor Andrew Kiraly, Jim Begley, Greg Thilmont, and Mitchell Wilburn) before the final selections are agreed upon. This was a watershed year for local restaurants and our winners reflect that. As usual, click here to read about all the awards in their original format. Buon gusto!

DESERT COMPANION RESTAURANT(S) OF THE YEAR 2018

There couldn’t be just one. Not this year. Not in a year that was a watershed for great kitchen talent emerging in the suburbs. For the first time since I can remember (which goes all the way back to 1981) more great restaurants opened off the Strip than on it. And for the first time since our restaurant revolution began in earnest — twenty years ago with the opening of the Bellagio — all the serious foodies in town were not heading to a big hotel, but to Chinatown or downtown — places hitherto dismissed as not worthy of serious consideration by galloping gastronomes.

It was ten years in the making, this restaurant renaissance — the roots of which can be traced to the great recession of 2008, when real estate values nosedived, and chefs everywhere were thrown on the streets. As that recession hung on, two things happened in Las Vegas: the hotels lost their nerve, and young chefs started getting some. The mojo that enticed everyone from Sirio Maccioni to Pierre Gagnaire to come here gave way to a Strip scene reduced to celebrating warmed-over celebrities and licensing deals. Into this void stepped a few brave souls who wondered why Strip-quality cooking couldn’t succeed with locals. In a town of over two million people, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have a thriving local restaurant scene, they thought, and with lots of diners coming of age who wanted the good stuff without all the tourist trappings, it was time for our neighborhood food scene to explode, and explode it has.

In terms of progress, downtown made the biggest jump with Esther’s Kitchen leading the pack. James Trees’ ode to Italy has become ground zero for a neighborhood (the arts district) that went from being little more than a collection of junk shops to a stroll-able, eatable and drinkable area all within the past year. Esther’s doesn’t sound very Italian but that’s exactly what it is–  bombarding you with antipasti, verduras (veggies), handmade pastas and pizzas straight from a Roman’s playbook. He even throws in a fish of the day (always worth it), brick chicken (a crowd favorite), and a thick, porky porchetta for mavens of meat. As good as they are, it’s those pastas and pizzas are where the kitchen really shines.

Trees is a veteran of the Los Angeles restaurant scene and he knows a thing or two about how to grab a diner’s attention. The spaghetti pomodoro, chiatarra cacio e pepe (with pecorino cheese and black pepper), bucatini all’amatriciana, and rigatoni carbonara are the pinnacle of pasta porn. All of it amounts to updated Italian comfort food for the 21st Century.  It may not be like any Roman trattoria I’ve ever been in, but with a significant cocktail program, and a wine list where everything is $40 (by the bottle, not glass), it is most assuredly a modern American version that seeks to do the same thing: satisfy its customers in a way that will have them returning again and again.

(The Three Musketeers)

If downtown came of age in 2018, Chinatown took a European turn. If someone had told me three years ago that this three mile stretch of pan-Pacific eats would be anchored by a French restaurant at one end, and a Spanish one at the other (with an excellent American gastropub – Sparrow + Wolf – in the middle) I would’ve told them to get their head examined. What Executive Chef Yuri Szarzewski, Pastry Chef Vincent Pellerin, and General Manager Nicolas Kalpokdjian (above) have done at Partage is nothing short of phenomenal: transplant a bit of sophisticated France to an all-Asian plaza with a beautiful dining room and drop-your-fork gorgeous food.

Partage means “to share” and the menu encourages you to do just that. Twenty small plate options are offered, each amounting to no more than 2-3 bites of headliners like halibut ceviche (disguised to look like dragon fruit), or a perfect, meaty scallop swimming in a dashi broth with seaweed chutney and steamed leeks. For pure decadence though, nothing beats his oxtail croque monsieur — long simmered meat, slicked with bone marrow, served between three batons of the world’s most luxurious fried bread. The menu toggles back and forth between small bites and big proteins, with a significant nod given to vegetarians as well. A walk through this door transports you to a place I didn’t think could exist in Las Vegas: elevated French dining in a stunning, casual atmosphere, with a great bar and wine list, all served with flair at a fair price. Bon appetit, indeed.

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Our milestone year ended with an olé! From its forty cozy seats to the giant mural dominating one wall to the rolling gin and tonic cart, Edo Tapas & Wine is a jewel box designed to make you fall in love with it from the moment you enter. It arrived at the western end of the Spring Mountain in mid-summer, and announced its serious tapas intentions from the get-go. Things may look unassuming from the front but there’s quite a pedigree behind that door. Chef/owner Oscar Edo is a Strip veteran, as is partner Roberto Liendo. Between them, they have a strong sense of the food and service a place like this needs to appeal to gastronauts who demands the new over the tried and true. And while the whole small plates/tapas thing may seem like old hat, they freshen the genre by blending the traditional with more than just a wink and a nod to their Asian surroundings.

When it comes to those tapas, just pick and point. Chunky Maine lobster comes “salpicón-style — dressed with “tiger’s milk” — which lightens the richness of the crustacean, while croquetas get that Asian spin with kimchi pisto. After those, the hits just keep on coming: pulpo viajero (octopus with tamarind mole), buñelos de bacalao (salt cod fritters with squid ink and lime), and something called “Bikini” — wafer-thin, crispy compression of sobrasada and Mahon cheese — which might be the last word in tiny toast. You really can’t go wrong with any of the plates here — some are just more spectacular than others. One of the more eye-popping ones is huevos estrellados – a toothsome riff on this Spanish staple — assembling olive-oil fried eggs, piquillo peppers and a melange of mushrooms atop fried potatoes. The menu is nicely balanced between meat and seafood offerings, and the paella is worth a trip all by itself.

By Las Vegas Strip standards, these are small fry, but what they represent for the future of our neighborhoods is a very big deal. Cooking this good — with serious cocktail and wine intentions — was unheard of five years ago outside of the hotels. By opening their doors, these operators announced that Italy, France and Spain (the gastronomic capitals of the western world) have arrived in our backyard. Eating out locally in Las Vegas will never be the same, and we have these three to thank for this tasty state of affairs.

 

 

Remembering Joel Robuchon

(Ed. note: This article originally appeared, in slightly different form (and with less food pictures) in Desert Companion magazine; you can access that version by clicking here.)

The Death of Taste

Joël Robuchon’s passing isn’t just sad news in itself. It signals the beginning of the end of Strip fine dining as we know it

When Joël Robuchon announced in 2004 that he was coming to the MGM Grand, Ruth Reichl, then editor of Gourmet magazine, called it the most important news in American gastronomy in the past 50 years. He was not a TV chef a la Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse, nor was he an old warhorse in the Paul Bocuse mold. Instead, this was a very French chef — the “Chef of the Century” (as designated by one French gastronomic journal) who had retired in 1995 while still at the top of his game — and Las Vegas was where he was going to plant the first flag in his campaign for an international comeback. He was bringing not just the fanciest of French food to town, but something far more important: credibility.

It’s hard to overstate what his arrival meant for Las Vegas’ dining reputation. Our top-down, celebrity-chef culture was starting to garner some criticism by the early 2000s; and even though our dining options had vastly improved under the (absentee) auspices of Michael Mina, Wolfgang Puck, Thomas Keller, and others, it was easy for food snobs to dismiss our restaurants as little more than branding exercises designed to appeal to the reality TV crowd. But Robuchon and his colleagues changed all that. Here was a chef’s chef, a revered master of the culinary arts bringing his technical skills and otherworldly flavors to Sin City, a place whose culinary history had more in common with Elvis impersonators that the haute cuisine of Paris.

All that changed in early 2005. Robuchon was not a household name in America, but gourmands the world over spoke of him with reverential awe. Imagine Yo-Yo Ma showing up in the land of Donnie and Marie, and you get the idea. He arrived not only with a cuisine that had wowed international gastronomes, but also with a radical concept in fine food that remains with us today. What L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon did (first in Paris in 2003 and then in Las Vegas) was to turn the very idea of gourmet dining on its head by presenting the most sophisticated of cuisines in something that looked like a sushi/tapas bar. These days, avid foodies take for granted — indeed, demand — eating finely tuned food in laid-back surroundings. Robuchon, however, did it first and did it best. “C’est une revolution!” the French food press proclaimed, and so it was. And it set the stage for the wave of chef-driven food in informal settings that was to become the signature style of restaurants everywhere for the first two decades of the 21st century.

In gastronomy, as in art, fashion and architecture, the seismic changes often happen from the top down. What is haute couture one year in Milan often shows up three years later on the clearance rack at Macy’s. Robuchon begat this revolution as a reaction to the high pressure (and crippling expense) of chasing Michelin stars. He brought forth his L’Ateliers as a new way to feature the best of French food. Unfortunately, as with many knockoffs of luxury brands, imitators have remixed his ideas into a sweeping casualization of our dining culture — without the attention to detail or chops that Robuchon and his troops brought to the table.

The past 10 years have seen a steady erosion of the many comforts that used to make eating out so delightful. Civilized noise levels, comfortable chairs, and tablecloths are becoming as obsolete as tasseled menus, and one wonders if truly fine dining and its attendant luxuries won’t soon be leaving the stage along with the ghost of Monsieur Robuchon. Our entire dining revolution began with Spago, and gained worldwide attention with the addition of luminaries such as Le Cirque and Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare. These were big-deal meal restaurants, with service and prices to match, but they announced themselves (and Las Vegas) as a food scene to be reckoned with.

No one is making such a splash these days. Bradley Ogden won the Best New Restaurant James Beard Award in 2004; it was replaced with a boring (I’m being kind) Gordon Ramsay Pub. Instead of the Tuscan elegance of Circo, we now have Lago, a restaurant with lots of small plates and all the charm of a bus station. The Strip isn’t trying to make its restaurants world-class anymore; it wants social media “likes” and Instagrammable David Chang clones. For 20 years, Las Vegas’s reputation as an upscale resort town was directly related to the quality of its restaurants. (You can gamble or get a Chanel bag anywhere these days, but where else in the world could you find dozens of superb dining options, from the greatest steaks to haute cuisine palaces, all in a couple of miles of each other?) As we head deeper into this century, it seems our hotels are all too willing to soil that reputation in their quest to dumb down Vegas into another Branson, Missouri — albeit one with drier weather and more day clubs.

The visionaries of Las Vegas recognized that Baby Boomers had money to spend on upscale food and drink — but, beyond that, they recognized great restaurants as an aspirational signifier of the finer things in life. When sitting side-by-side and screaming at each other is the new restaurant normal, it may signal a devolution from which there is no return. If Las Vegas wants to retain its stature as a dining destination for a certain level of affluent traveler, it’s going to have to recapture the spirit that brought Robuchon, José Andres, Guy Savoy and Pierre Gagnaire here, not vapid TV personalities and warmed-over noodle shops.

In the meantime, we still have the virtuosity of his two restaurants in Las Vegas. Whether L’Atelier and Joël Robuchon at the Mansion (his more classically formal dining room) will soldier on remains an open question, but his legacy will be far vaster than whether his restaurants continue to serve the food he made famous. Joël Robuchon taught us how technically precise, and almost perfect, restaurant cooking can be. And for his last act, he taught chefs and diners that elegant, visually stunning plates of food need not be accompanied by stuffiness or pretension. Ruth Reichl was right: Joël Robuchon was the biggest thing ever to happen to American gastronomy — and he was the biggest and best thing ever to happen to restaurants in Las Vegas.

The unforgettables – Some quintessentially Robuchon plates:

The world’s best mini-burger

Everyone does sliders/mini-burgers these days, but you’ve never tasted one as good as this.

Tomato gelée with mozzarella

Photo of Joël  Robuchon - Las Vegas, NV, United States. Tomato gelee topped with mozzarella

Robuchon once told me the hardest dish in the world to make was a Caprese salad. “It only has four ingredients, so there’s no place to hide.” Ever the master of simplified sleight-of-hand, he riffs on tomato, olive oil, basil and cheese by disguising the tomato as a clear liquid, and putting the world’s most perfectly formed, teeny tiny, basil-accented, mozzarella balls on top of it.

A simple composed salade

So good it could make a vegetarian out of you.

Le Caille (Quail)

Image result for Joel Robuchon Le Caille

A dish that goes back to Robuchon’s glory days at Jamin (his first 3-star Michelin), the breast of quail is rolled and filled with foie gras and then given a honey-soy glaze. “His philosophy was to treat simplicity with sophistication,” is how Executive Chef Christophe De Lellis describes JR’s cuisine, and nothing says it better than this dish.

La Langoustine “Fritter”

It’s hard to improve on the flavor of a dense, sweet, almost gamy langoustine, but Robuchon figured out that wrapping it in phyllo with a single basil leaf and serving it with a basil-garlic pistou was just the trick. “We were taught not to needlessly add flavors,” says L’Atelier Exec Chef Jimmy Lisnard, “but to amplify the product itself.”

Fin