Tag: Mandarin Oriental Hotel

Restaurant of the Year – TWIST BY PIERRE GAGNAIRE

Twist by Turbo Gagnaire

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR – TWIST BY PIERRE GAGNAIRE

When Twist by Pierre Gagnaire opened in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in 2009, it capped a culinary renaissance that had been seven years in the making. Beginning in 2003 with Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, our French revolution continued through the openings of Joël Robuchon (2005), Daniel Boulud (2005) and Guy Savoy (2006), and was such a sea change in the quality of restaurant cooking that the whole world took notice. By the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, only New York and San Francisco could lay claim to having a fine dining scene as sophisticated as ours.

Twist was last but not least to this party, but what an entrance it made. From the beginning, it featured the groundbreaking, modernist cuisine of Pierre Gagnaire, usually served in a blizzard of plates surrounding a central theme. At the time, you might be excused for thinking that you were getting too much of a good thing as Gagnaire’s chefs riffed on everything from crabs to cauliflower, sometimes overwhelming your palate in the process. These days, Chef de Cuisine Frédéric Don does his master proud by creating more focused menus, in a glistening atmosphere, delivered by a staff that never misses a beat.

Besides the razor-sharp execution, jaw-dropping presentations and fork-dropping flavors, what impresses the most about Twist is how it’s come together in the past year to become an almost perfect Las Vegas restaurant. It always had the pedigree, the spectacle and the world-class cooking, and now its menu fits the Strip like a Chanel suit. Exotic fare (foie gras parfait, langoustine beignet, smoked haddock soufflé) competes with eye-popping vegetarian menus as this kitchen toggles back and forth between wild tubot finished in a classic beurre Nantais to a not-so-classic black eggplant tortellini with black garlic velouté. This is cooking in the deep end of the epicurean pond, and in the wrong hands you could find yourself drowning in a sea of ingredients. Instead, everything from the proteins to the plants is always on point. If all chefs cooked vegetables this well, the birds and the beasts that roam the earth would have nothing to worry about.

The point of Twist is to dazzle, to intrigue, and to amuse; but it never confuses. (Along with those pirouettes on the plate, they also serve some mighty great steaks.) With an improved (and more affordable) wine program, and Vivian Chang’s ethereal desserts, it has become our most complete dining salon — ready to impress the neophyte gastronome as much as the fussiest gourmet — all served with a view that’s as breathtaking as what’s on your plate.

TWIST BY PIERRE GAGNAIRE

Mandarin Oriental Hotel

702.590.8888

https://www.mandarinoriental.com/las-vegas/the-strip/fine-dining/restaurants/french-cuisine/twist-by-pierre-gagnaire

 

Do the Vegetarian TWIST

 

I have known many meat eaters to be far more non-violent than vegetarians. – Mohandas Gandhi

Vegetarianism is harmless enough, although it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness. – Sir Robert Hutchinson

Vegetarians have wicked, shifty eyes and laugh in a cold, calculating manner. They pinch little children, steal stamps, drink water, favor beards. – J.B. Morton

Face it: we all eat too much meat. No one loves a good steak more than yours truly, but the raising of large mammals for human consumption is bad for both the body and the body politic.

We’re not doing the fish any favors, either.

But where’s a body to go when the spirit to eat healthy is willing, but the choices are weak? And more to the point, why is vegetarian food so bad? (Let’s face it #2: Most vegetarian food sucks harder than a Fremont Street hooker on a three-day meth bender. It sucks because most vegetarian food is cooked by vegetarians, and vegetarians are usually terrible at cooking food, because all of them suffer from fear of food.)

It’s a true fact established by scientific data yet to be compiled that 96.97843% of all vegetarians live in mortal fear of the things they eat. (Vegans are even worse, but we won’t go there right now.)

It’s also true that you can’t cook anything well if you’re afraid of it. The key to good cooking (like good relationships) is loving and respecting the object of your affection. Not for nothing do barbecue cooks lovingly massage their briskets with dry rub, or dessert chefs view a pool of melted chocolate like an impressionist painter sees her oils.

Vegetarians never develop this kindred spirit with the things they eat. They’re too busy worrying about what their victuals are doing to their insides. Vegetarians have a preoccupation with their innards that borders on the religious.

Vegetarians also start wars, are cruel to young children (see above), and like to kick small animals. You could look it up.

They also don’t have a clue how to season things. Or how to tell when something is at its peak period of palate pleasing perfection.

So, bottom line: avoid vegetarians and (especially) vegetarian restaurants at all costs.

But, for the sake of argument, when you DO want to eat healthy, vegetarian food prepared by real experts, where should you go?

The answer is simple: Twist by Pierre Gagnaire — a restaurant so good at cooking vegetables you won’t miss meat even for a minute.

The reasons Twist is so good at vegetarian food is also simple. It’s because it is a real restaurant, manned by real chefs who understand and love food. They know how to choose good ingredients, how to handle them, how to prepare them and how to cook them. They know how to season things, and know exactly when that asparagus spear, or leaf of lettuce or slice of avocado is at its consumable best.

They’re also really really good at extracting and intensifying the flavors of things, be it a dot of lemon sauce, or horseradish-infused milk cubes:

They’re also experts (some of the best in the world, in fact) in presenting food as an eye-pleasing palette for your palate.

…as well as making the most out of modest provisions, like the celery/spinach/corn pudding/soup pictured above. If ever there were a vegetarian dish that highlights the glories of French cooking this is it. Parsed from the humblest ingredients, it is by turns both beautiful and greater than the sum of its parts. If all chefs could cook vegetables this well, the beasts and birds that roam the earth would have nothing to worry about.

The chef now in charge of the Twist kitchen is Frédéric Don. He is the third chef in eight years to take the helm here, and like his predecessors, his task is mostly to execute recipes that have been firmly vetted in corporate kitchens by a cadre of corporate chefs. This doesn’t make his duties any less important, but it does mean that he is expected to be more of a technician than an artiste. Whether he’s wildly creative, or a simple servant of his celebrity chef master, doesn’t matter to us. What does matter is the hyper-deliciousness of the food here, and we can confidently proclaim that well into its ninth year, the food at Twist is better than ever. And not to take anything away from those who preceded him, but I found Don’s dishes (both vegetarian and not) to be prettier on the plate, and more focused on the palate, than in the past. (We are talking very fine distinctions here: the difference between an A+ and (at worst) an A-, but when you’ve eaten here a dozen times, as we have, you notice these things.)

No matter how you slice the sunchokes, Don is doing Pierre Gagnaire proud, and keeping Twist at the forefront of our fine French restaurants. The wine list is vastly improved — not exactly a bargain hunter’s dream, but with some nice, easy-to-drink bottles for under a hundy — and the tiny bar now turns out an array of craft cocktails for those so inclined.

And for those of you so inclined to come over to the dark side, they also do some killer frogs’ legs.

Image may contain: food

Somewhere, an amphibian is on crutches.

 

http://www.woodswell.com/images/frog%20legs-SamGross.JPG

Ouch.

TWIST BY PIERRE GAGNAIRE

Mandarin Oriental Hotel

702.590.8888

http://www.mandarinoriental.com/lasvegas/fine-dining/twist-by-pierre-gagnaire/

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ELV postscript: Before any of you get your mung beans in a bunch, know that my dearly beloved mother (Marcella Ruth Schroader Curtas, D.O.B. 8-10-24) has been a vegetarian for 50 of her 92 years. As far as I know, she’s never started any wars or kicked a small animal. My wife (the long-suffering Food Gal®) skews vegetarian as well. (Although she occasionally craves a cheeseburger.) ELV — the man, the myth the inveterate carnivore — realizes that some day all humans will be vegetarians and be healthier for it. However, until that day comes, he will continue to enjoy his pulled pork, as well as his duck a l’orange.)

 

BENTO by MOzen

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MOzen has been the best Indian restaurant in Las Vegas since the day it opened. It also excels at its Japanese and Asian specialties (as befitting the hotel it resides in). Because of these strengths, it has decided to re-brand itself as Bento by MOzen, at the dinner hour, and concentrate on what it does best, instead of positioning itself as an all-things-to-all-diners restaurant after dark . And what it does best is cater to the finicky palates of the well-heeled, well-traveled swells who bed down here — people who appreciate the finest in tom yum goong, dal makahani, and tandoori chicken that will make them/you weep.

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