Tag: Italian food

Our Favorite Italians

In Italy, the whole country is a theatre and the worst actors are on the stage. – George Bernard Shaw

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Dario Cecchini and Faith Willinger are two Italians of a different stripe.

Cecchini — the Master Butcher/Intellectual of Panzano — has been called the world’s best butcher. (“To beef, or not to beef?” is his rallying cry.*)

Willinger is a born-again Italian who has spent 35 years exploring Italy, from its Alps to Sicily, searching for the best food this giant, slurp-worthy isthmus of eatability has to offer. (“Good wine and bad wine have the same amount of calories.”  is one of her sayings.)

And let me tell you my friends, you can do a lot worse in an evening than sharing a ginormous bistecca a la Fiorentina:

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…with these two mavens of meat at a ristorante. In this case that ristorante was CUT last Thursday night — where they both were on hand to kick off the Venetian/Palazzo’s Italian Food Festival.

Cecchini was his usual ebullient self:

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….in fact he (along with some ginger friend of his in orange clogs):

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….practically defines the term.

And we bonded with Faith (a lady whose guidebooks we would never think of going to Italy without) like we were old friends in a matter of minutes:

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Yeah, Italians, born-again or otherwise, are like that.

Just about the friendliest people on earth.

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* To beef! …and then not to beef… is his answer.

Celebrity Chef Takedown – OTTO ENOTECA

ELV note: We’ve been consistently disappointed by Mario Batali’s more affordable offering at the Venetian ever since it opened. (A lunch there a little over a year ago had us longing for the enforced mediocrity of Canaletto — literally a stone’s throw away in the same shopping mall.) After a succession of paltry and pathetic pasta performances, we had a face to face with Molto Mario and his partner Joe Bastianich last fall and gave them details. In return, they made all the right noises and assured us that things would change. By the looks of things, they haven’t. Below, uber-foodie and Official Friend of Eating Las Vegas David Ross explains (in a tone more reasonable and less hyperbolic/venomous than you are probably used to at this web address) why this is just another celebrity chef money machine — to be avoided by anyone with anything but a company credit card and low expectations. (ELV wonders if, with their busy schedules, Mario and Joe ever actually taste their restaurant’s food)

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A partnership between Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, (you know his Mother, Lydia, she cooks Italian on PBS), Otto Enoteca should be a soft introduction to guests of the marriage between Italian wine and quality ingredients crafted into familiar, yet authentic dishes. That’s one of the better aspects of what this restaurant should be. Yet the expectations of dining in the restaurant of a former “Iron Chef” is quickly tempered by reality. Otto Enoteca is both the best and worst of the Celebrity Chef culture in Las Vegas.

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