5. CARNEVINO
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Carnevino isn’t just one of the best steakhouses in Las Vegas; it might be the best steakhouse in the country. It also might be, on any given night, the best Italian restaurant in Las Vegas. Throw in a killer cocktail program, a warm, spacious and inviting lounge, and a world-class wine list and you have the fifth most essential restaurant in Sin City.
Continue reading “EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants – Number Five”
Squirrel Nut Zippers "Suits Are Picking Up the Bill" directed by Norwood Cheek from Norwood Cheek on Vimeo.
It’s pretty hard to feel sorry for a celebrity chef — especially one who’s led as charmed a life as Giada De Laurentiis — but that was our primary response after reading a recent article on her trials and tribulations in trying to get things done her way at Giada – The Restaurant.
Continue reading “GIADA – THE RESTAURANT (Where the Suits are Picking Up the Bill)”
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