Eric L’huillier Needs to Stay in Vegas

We’ve just had our 3rd outstanding meal in less than a year at Pinot Brasserie — Las Vegas’s most underrated restaurant.

Over the past year or so, we’ve taken to calling PB an under-appreciated jewel in our crown of restaurant gems, and nothing we’ve tasted lately has dissuaded us from trumpeting the excellence of the cooking on display here.

We also know this Joachim Spichal mainstay is not long for the Vegas restaurant world. (Sources have been telling us for months that the Venetian has tried to buy out Splichal’s lease, but he’s not budging until it expires sometime in the next year.)

Be that as it may, the Executive Chef at PB — Eric L’huillier — the man who has churned out precise and drop-your-fork-delicious versions of French bistro food here for the past seven years — is soon to be out of a job through no fault of his own. (ELV feels L’huillier’s pain, as he has been out-0f-a-job many times in his life, although always through some fault of his own.)

Eating Las Vegas thinks L’huillier (pronounced Loo-WEE-lee-ay) would be a perfect fit at a place like Tableau in the Wynn or Marche Bacchus — places in need of some real talent (and stability) in the kitchen.

Of course, they’d have to pay him a boatload of money.

But he would be worth it.

Because the man knows French cooking like I know alimony.

PINOT BRASSERIE

In the Venetian Hotel and Casino

3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

702.414.8888

www.patinagroup.com/restaurant.php?restaurants_id=26

PINOT Envy Times Deux

ELV note: In keeping with our efforts to keep this website as tasty as ever, the staff at Eating Las Vegas has decided to try something new in the restaurant reviewing biz, to wit – having two critics analyze the same meal from their disparate viewpoints, the better to have you devour and delectate  their various disseminations. Given his seniority, Mr. Curtas shall be the first to weigh in, followed by young Wilburn, with whom he shared a memorable repast in the past week.

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“How can a restaurant that’s so good be so under the radar?” is the question I kept asking myself throughout my tasting menu at Pinot Brasserie. Then I realized I was to blame….along with Joachim Splichal.

Continue reading “PINOT Envy Times Deux”