Best New Restaurants 2023

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It’s been a banner year for new restaurants, but most of the growth has been confined to the ‘burbs. (Face it: the Strip is now more boring than an Elon Musk boondoggle.)

Whether the engine is a booming economy, pent-up demand or big money finally stepping into the food game (Hello, The Sundry and Lev Group!), the greater Las Vegas area is teeming with worthy newcomers, some done on a shoestring, others well-financed, each seeking a slice of the hunger pie. In years past we might’ve had trouble coming up with half a dozen lip-smacking joints, this year has been a bounty of riches, with more to come in the final four months.

And yes, I know the year is only 66.6% over, but whether it is out of habit (10 years of writing my guidebook, and 25 of doing the Desert Companion/KNPR Restaurant Awards), I seem to be congenitally wired to start writing about the “year’s best” when summertime is on the wane.

So consider this a partial list, which bears updating, but a good start if you’re looking for what is recent and deserving of your dining out dollars:

The Best New Restaurants of 2023 (in no particular order, with commentary):

138 Degrees Craft Chophouse CLOSED

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Image(…and then this lawyer dude asked for ketchup…)

Henderson has a steakhouse to call its own, aging everything from the sirloins to the salmon.

Basilico Ristorante Italiano

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It’s hard to get excited about Italian anymore, but I can almost work up a woody over this one.

1228 Main

You will not find me here most mornings only because my waistline won’t allow it.

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As good as the pastries are, the lunch/dinner options (including the best pasta of the year pictured above) here are every bit as technically perfect as you would expect from a Wolfgang Puck operation.

Azzurra Cucina

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If this keeps up, we’re going to have to retire the word Hendertucky and start eating crow….with a proper demi-glace, of course.

Aroma Latin American Cocina

Nueva Latina in Green Valley makes about as much sense as a salsa band at a Mormon social, but here it is, just waiting to be discovered by the mortgage-poor crowd. Full disclosure: we haven’t been, but Eat. Talk. Repeat. co-host Ash the Attorney raves about this place.

Ocean Prime

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Vegas needs another chain steakhouse like I need another ex-wife, but when the payoff is this spectacular, the heart goes where the heart goes.

Kaiseki Yuzu Sushi Bar

ImageJonathon Mau knows his Maguro)

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Strictly for purists; no sushbags allowed.

00 Pie & Pub

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Mike Vakneen is a pizza savant and Chinatown is now his playground.

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The starters — including the roasted Calabrian peppers with anchovies above — are Esther’s Kitchen-worthy.

Mizunara at The Sundry

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Homie don’t order off no QR code. Home boy (who hasn’t been a boy for 50 years) demands old-fashioned service…and cold ramen noodles like these.

Marche Bacchus – Bradley Ogden edition

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MB has been through so many incarnations we’ve stopped counting. So has Bradley Ogden for that matter. But the menu here hasn’t been this good in a decade, and though things might look the same, you’re basically eating in a whole new restaurant.

Naxos Taverna

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Think of it as a slightly cheaper, local’s Estiatorio Milos, with free parking and without the fish displayed like jewelry… and thank me later. (Efcharistó, Mark Andelbradt)

Taste of Asia

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Chinatown-level Chinese in Summerlin makes about as much sense as haute Latina in Henderson, but the times they are a-changin’. Karrie Hung is out to raise the Asia steaks in a part of town who finds Panda Express too “foreign”. There’s plenty to placate the sweet and sour pork crowd, but the real gems are in the chef’s specials and seafood, plus the best Peking duck deal ($80) this side of New Asian BBQ.

Daeho Kalbijjim

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Years of dining with our Korean komrades has taught us that Korean restaurants are usually known for doing one or two things well, and the rest of the menu is just filler. Daeho does its justifiably famous sweet-spicy beef rib stew, with promiscuous cheese pulls for those infected with Tik Tok brain….like us above, straining to influence the f++k out of this place.

B.S. Taqueria at The Sundry

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The B. S. stands for “Broken Spanish” and it’s the best Mexican food we had this year. Second only to Viva! by Ray Garcia in Resorts World. Same chef, terrific tortillas, serious south of the border stuff.

Lamoon

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Lamoon packs a one-two punch of fiery food and highly-curated wine that will leave you fit to be Thai’d. The decor (in an old Dairy Queen!) is pretty snappy too.

Hola Mexican Cocina + Cantina

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I once made the mistake on KNPR radio of pronouncing “cocina” as co-CHEEN-a instead of saying co-THEEN-a  or co-SEEN-a — which apparently meant I was describing a local restaurant as a prostitute instead of a kitchen. No matter how you pronounce it, the food here tastes great no matter how much Mexican you speak.

Yukon Pizza

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Why a burger and not a pizza pic? Because of all the griddled, frilly smashed cheeseburgers in town, this one meats all expectations…as do all their kick-ass pies.

Yen Viet Kitchen

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Not strictly new this year, but new to us, and best Vietnamese food we have eaten in Las Vegas, ever — and we’ve eaten in all of them, up and down Spring Mountain Road. What this video lacks in dynamism and drama, it makes up for in information. A must-stop on SMR, and the definition of a hidden gem.

Speaking of hidden gems….

Yummy Kitchen

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They don’t get much more tucked away than Yummy Kitchen, tossing its chili crab and other Singaporean-Malaysian delights inside an Asian supermarket, far across a parking lot at Spring Mountain and Decatur. The crabs are still-moving fresh, and the garlic shrimp, roti, Hainanese chicken, and Malay curries will save you plane fare to Disneyland-with-the-death-penalty.

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While we’re at it…..

Worst new restaurants of 2023:

M.Y. Asia (Closed!)

From stunt noodles to chicken so bad it left us yearning for a Panda Express, this tourist trap was D.O.A.

Told. You. So.

Vic’s

Comically < average Italian at the Smith Center, brought to you by folks who’ve never dined at Brezza or Basilico….and wouldn’t understand them if they did.

Bespoke Kitchen

Nothing bespoke except the name.

Cathédrale

By-the-numbers dining for the selfie wall crowd, brought to you by the Tao Group — who haven’t had an original idea since 2005. Soulless decor, jaw-dropping prices, insulting wine list — the symbol of every unimaginative ripoff late-stage Las Vegas has become in one, overdecorated restaurant.

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Did we miss a few on both sides of these equations? Probably, but this list should get you started, and we have three months to keep eating and augment things.

Enjoy the rest of your summer, and cheers!

THE END

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Late-Stage Las Vegas + The List

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Writers take their muses wherever they find them. The inspiration for this post came from James Reza — longtime Las Vegan, once my editor; now a thoughtful observer of all things Vegas — in a tweet about the possibility of the Oakland Athletics moving to town:

Which got me to thinking about “late-stage” culinary Las Vegas.

Just where are we now? And what do we have to look forward to?

The Strip — long the economic and creative engine of all things gastronomic in town — has faded into a hangout for Martha Stewart fans and Voltaggio Brothers cash grabs. (For what is a “one-year year culinary residency” but a way to monetize an  unusable space (the two-story vacated Aureole cavern) with the unimaginative (“Retro”) from the unimpressive (who?). We couldn’t be less interested if they were serving spaghetti Os and fake Parmesan, which, of course, they will be.

These places will make money of course, but they won’t leave a mark. Swapping an Old Navy for a Gap in a tired old mall is not the same as bringing Neiman-Marcus and Nordstrom’s to town in the first place.

“I am so done with the Strip,” exclaimed another muse for this article. The speaker of those words wasn’t some local jamoke who hates being charged for parking. He has been a fixture on Las Vegas Boulevard South for decades — opening multiple restaurants in hotels going back to the Nineties. Now he envisions a future for his company opening smaller venues for locals who appreciate them — something unthinkable a decade ago.

Strip-quality food coming to neighborhoods is nothing new: You can trace its roots from Other Mama’s premium seafood to our upscale sushi parlors and to the prime cuts now available at 138 Degrees (Henderson) and Harlo (Summerlin). With this quality comes Strip-level pricing, but from where we’re sitting, no one in the carriage trade seems to be balking at $100/pp check minimums.

Chinatown (where a 75 seat restaurant is considered huge) continues to explode, while the southwest seems to be attracting chefs and concepts like eggs to Bearnaise.

All of which bodes well for locals, and marginalizes whatever is happening on the Strip, at least for those of us who used to be in awe of the restaurant revolution that took place there for twenty years.

Will we trundle up to Caesars to see the new Peter Luger when it opens? Sure, if only to compare it to the New York original. (If things run true to form, the menu will be laughably short, the wine list absurdly brief, and the staff comically rude.)

But Luger and the Voltaggios and even Martha Stewart — the octogenarian queen of brand-whoring — pretty much signal that the celebrity chef restaurant has run its course. And if they weren’t enough to convince me, then septuagenarian Martin Yan’s bad joke of a licensing deal should do the trick…and demonstrates how deeply we are scraping the bottom of the celebrity chef barrel.

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You probably have to be over fifty to remember Yan from his  “Yan Can Cook” PBS days. Perhaps once he could, but no longer. Now he’s prostituting his brand like a pint-sized Martha Stewart, keeping accountants happy and his rice bowl full at our expense. I doubt any of the low-rollers in this charm-free dining space even know who Yan was, except in a “this guy used to be famous” kind of way. Regardless, he’s been reduced to going through the motions to cash in on a faded name and the cynicism behind the whole enterprise is palpable.

Here is my Instagram rant on the matter and we’ll leave it at that.

As an official old-timer, it is easy to get depressed about the direction in which Vegas is heading. F1! NFL! Super Bowls and Baseball! Late-stage Vegas has morphed before our eyes from a town of gambling, food, and music into the mega-event capital of America. Las Vegas used to be about wicked fun and excess….then it was food and shopping. Its future will be all about advertising.

The idea of a big hotel opening with a lounge and a showroom and six good restaurants now seems as quaint as a flip phone.  Old time casino table games don’t count anymore, anymore than washed up brands still trying to cash in.

Perhaps the Fountainebleau will kick start a new dawn in Vegas dining. Hope springs eternal. And there are still many, many legacy restaurants occupying a special place in our hearts (Milos, Jaleo, Robuchon, Delmonico, Savoy, Bazaar Meat…) plus a few new ones which rate a return (Balla, Viva!, Brezza….)…but lord help me if I ever step foot in The Horseshoe again. (True fact: You can put lipstick on a pig and it will always be Bally’s.)

Soooo….long story short, after the Yan disaster, I needed a series of superb experiences to inspire me to post yet another promiscuous purview of my palate pursuits….so here it is, for the umpteenth time in a row, THE LIST: the places in Las Vegas you should be eating in and why. Put another way: the places I’ve been eating and why they give me hope for the future of Las Vegas.

As usual, all venues come highly recommended unless otherwise noted:

1228 Main

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Image(One banana-mint blueberry martini comin’ up!)

How can we be so jazzed about a restaurant before it opens? Easy peasy when it has the pedigree of this one. The folks who brought you Spago, CUT, Lupo, et al are about to change the downtown game in ways unimaginable a half-decade ago: three meals a day; an on premise bakery; world-class desserts; Cal-Ital-French menu (like the one that made Wolfgang Puck famous); remarkable coffee; casual lunches and serious dinners — this will be like nothing Main Street has ever seen.

To be clear: This is not a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, but he is an investor, and his major league kitchen talent is behind the project. We expect this rising tide to raise all boats, and finally turn Main Street into the dining destination it was destined to become. (East Fremont must be watching and weeping.)

Opening at the end of the month. Now if we could only remember the address…

Further good news arrived in the form of Bradley Ogden’s ongoing overhaul of Marché Bacchus‘s kitchen, and a single bite of his steakburger gave me hope for the future:

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Bouchon is still the place to go for vichyssoise, boudin blanc and Le Cirque-worthy crème brûlée:

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…not to mention sweetbreads. Bouchon is also the only place we know of in Vegas, with the cojones to serve them. You know these glands gotta be good if we head there directly after spending two weeks in France. In business almost twenty years now, Bouchon has endured because its food is….wait for it…thymus:

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Caveat: As much as we love the Big B, its ‘ersters were unimpressive, in size and selection. We’ve always called them best in town, but that crown has been usurped by another slurper — Water Grill — where even late in the season, the bivalves were clearly bigger, better, and fresher:

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Since we’re in a seafood mood, when the hankerin’ for fish and chips arises, the malt-battered ones at 7th & Carson are coronation-worthy:

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And don’t sleep on the incroyable desserts at Osteria Fiorella:

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As long as we’re remembering superior succulence over the past three monts, this “Secreto Pork” at Edo Gastro Tapas & Wine stands out:

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…as do the life-affirming/health-giving properties of Khoury’s Mediterranean practically perfect puffy pita:

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Naxos Taverna restored my faith in off-Strip casino eating …by bringing Milos-quality seafood to the ‘burbs. Gorgeous swimmers, pretty room, beautiful apps, and finally, a restaurant with a chef (Mark Andelbradt) who knows how to cook a f**king artichoke:

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The restorative powers of Szechuan cuisine are well known, but be advised: at Chengdu Taste , they must be sampled with a fire hose in tow:

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When it comes to breakfast, The Daily Bread stands apart. It’s fresh-baked goods are shockingly good, and this banana cream croissant was the definition of scrumptious:

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Did someone say “Conchinita Pibil?”After three weeks in France, the one thing we craved was the spark of good Mexican, and Leticia’s Cocina & Cantina always fills the bill.

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Speaking of sparks, the contrast of rich and sharp is the elemental appeal of good Thai, and Lamoon had us over the moon with its comfy build-out (in an old Dairy Queen!) and a luscious duck khao soi:

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Everything we tried was a head-turner, both in presentation and taste. Just the palate resuscitator we needed after weeks of organ meats and stinky cheeses. Nice wine list, too, as befits the Bank and Bon Atcharawan brand.

In a more traditional vein, we returned to Cipriani for the pasta, but stayed for the gelato:

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One of the ways we keep our girlish figure is by walking to Cipriani for lunch on Fridays. This is not an option at  Hola Mexican Cocina+Cantina  which serves these fabulous blue corn grilled fish tacos at the far reaches of the southwest valley:

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Truth be truth, Hola is so far from the palatial Curtas abode:

(Landscaping is my passion)

…that it took a Sherpa guide, Two Conestoga wagons, and a degree in dead reckoning to find it. But the payoff was in those tortillas and even the spicy fideo — which got our attention more than any Mexican side dish in recent memory.

Closer to home is Patrick Munster’s brilliant steak tartare at Main Street Provisions:

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Anything and everything at Anima by Edo:

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Yes, that’s two mentions of Oscar Amador Edo’s food…which, as our hottest local chef running two of our hottest restaurants, he deserves.

Now, for the home stretch, some old reliables and newcomers which rang our chimes over the past few months:

Yukon Pizza is simply fabulous no matter how you slice it:

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Sea Salt Live Sashimi …is delicious, but not as pristine as Japanese, and definitely not for the squeamish. Pro tip: bring your favorite Korean to help you navigate the menu which is not exactly limited:

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Any pie at Good Pie always floats our boat:

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Nobody fries chicken like the Koreans, and no Korean in Vegas fries it like Ssoju Korean Pub:

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Soulbelly BBQ’s beef brisket taco are life-affirming…for everyone but the steer:

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And let us not forsake the bread and dips at Esther’s Kitchen:

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All of these meals restored my faith in humanity….at least as it relates to my taste buds. They also got me to thinking…

What will late-stage Vegas be? I expect the Strip to get dumber and locals to get smarter. Chef-driven restaurants are so 2010. “Name” chefs are gradually being replaced with corporate restaurant concepts like the ones that brought Tao, RPM, and Mott 32 to our shores(?). Next up will be the LPM Restaurants bringing “music, art, people and bonhomie [and] outrageous harmony in the room” — when it takes over the old Milos space in The Cosmo. More and more, new joints will prioritize a party vibe over the food, and the sports-loving crowds will eat it up. The restaurant-cum-nightclub is here to stay, and will make me long for the days when I thought the music at B&B Ristorante was a little too loud.

The Strip hotels once aimed high and hit their target, and brought world renown to our restaurant scene in the process. But the visionaries who changed that game are long gone, replaced by executives who view Vegas as one gigantic advertising platform masquerading as a sports bar, shoveling $100 steaks into the gaping maws of fanboys and show-offs.

With this change went any hope that the Strip’s restaurant scene will ever again be taken seriously, at least in my lifetime. It’s no coincidence that we have three finalists for James Beard Award this year and each of them — Oscar Amador Edo, Kaoru Azuechi, and Garagiste Wine Bar — plies their trade miles from Las Vegas Boulevard.

And miles from LVBlvd is where, with a few exceptions, you’ll find me these days. Because if there’s one thing I don’t want with my meals, it’s “music, art and outrageous harmony.”

Pizza My Mind

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Ed. note: We got thrown out of the Las Vegas Pizza Festival last Saturday. Here is the story:

Human beings are funny creatures, by turns fiercely independent and slavish devotees to never thinking for themselves. No other creature goes to such lengths to assert its individuality (e.g. tattoos) while mindlessly going along with the herd (cf. tattoos).

Crowds, events, concerts, rallies, have never been my thing. My idea of hell is being corralled into any space along with thousands (or hundreds) of others in order to witness something. This is not claustrophobia (although I am mildly claustrophobic) as much as it is a visceral reaction to being treated as something lesser than myself.

Even as a teenager, the idea of going to Woodstock was less about my revulsion at the idea of (literally) shitting in the woods than it was about the thought of sitting on a hillside with 200,000 smelly hippies, all grooving to the same tunes in unison. Even then, I preferred listening and enjoying the music my way:

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If getting me into a crowd is harder than enticing me to an Asian buffet, asking me to stand in line (to eat anything) is an insult to my intelligence.

If I’ve learned one lesson in fifty years of rabid restaurant hopping it is that no food in the world is worth standing in line for. America is the land of plenty. Lining up like starving cattle for a taste of something (and wasting valuable time doing so) is a soul-deadening experience where the payoff is rarely worth it. (“Look at me! I stood in line for an hour for a cronut!”)

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You are basically sacrificing your time while beseeching someone to take your money, when it ought to be the other way around.

(Exception: Snow’s Barbecue in Lexington Texas, which is only open one day/week. But that’s it.)

With all of this in mind, there I was last Saturday, against my better judgment, waiting in some stupid, roped off VIP line, being marshaled by more security than a presidential debate, to eat a few slices of pizza at the Las Vegas Pizza Festival. But we never got there, no pizza tasting. No kibbitzing with pizzaiolos, no whooping it up with friends over some tasty pies.

Nope, we were kicked out and here is the tale, told as it happened, along with some perspective about why the foodie events like this might not be worth it.

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A certain queasiness grips me as we approach. What’s with all the brawn? Did they give a pizza fest and a hip hop concert broke out? Are they expecting a riot over insufficient pepperoni?

At least a hundred poor sheep…er…uh…I mean souls are queued up in the non-VIP line, waiting for the velvet ropes to open up. Inside, there are giant men in matching golf shirts treating the situation with all the solemnity of a state funeral. Not wishing to waste time, I stride past these behemoths and get our press passes without a problem. (My father’s advice: “Just act like you own the place, works every time.” And it does!)

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Then, just beyond the press table, there they are, the dreaded switchback queues — the bane of airport travelers and amusement park goers everywhere — but before we even get to them we have to confront our first security check. (Yes, there are multiple security checks…for….let’s not forget…eating a few slices of f**king pizza.)

Musclebound baldy guard in too-tight T: “I need to see your ID.”

Me: “But we already have our press passes.”

Him: “I need to see proof that you are over 21.”

(Fun factoid(s): The Food Gal® may not look 50, but she’s way past 21. I may be young at heart, but no one has mistaken me for a college kid since Jimmy Carter was President.)

Me:

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Food Gal (pleading sweetly): “I left everything at home; can’t you see I’m over 21?”

Him: “I’ll have to check with my supervisor.”

Supervisor gets checked with, within a minute or so we are waved in. To the second security/wristband table. Then a third. To get a slice of pizza. A sense of dread fills me. Little did I know what I was in for.

By this time, I have TWO wristbands on (Fun Factoid #3: I consider wristbands one step below cattle prods on the dehumanizing accoutrement scale). and my eyes have been rolling back in my head so much they’re practically glued to the ceiling, but we press on, patiently, with a forced smile on my face.

The good news: by now the VIP line has dwindled to a dozen or so folks, who themselves are enduring these small humiliations, but regardless, pizza nirvana is only seconds away, and we still will have fifteen minutes or so to load up before the barbarians enter the gates.

Then, the fun begins. As we are standing in line behind a few folks, and maybe in front of a half-dozen others snaking their way through the absurd roped gauntlet, we spot two close friends (prepaid VIPs) who have cleared checkpoints one and two. So we wave to them to get in front of us at the (by now almost nothing) final entry point so we can walk in together.

No different than when you’re standing in line to order tacos at a food truck and your good friends show up to partake with you, right? Or maybe a better example is a bunch of ticket holders filing into a sporting event together. No harm no foul…

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Wrong.

Faster than you can say “overreacting rent-a-cop”, a plus-sized female comes racing through the ropes screaming “No cutting in line!” at my two friends who have just walked around a stanchion to join us. I ignore her; my male friend does not.

Pleasantries are exchanged to the point where I’m fairly certain neither will be sending the other a Christmas card, and before I can chime in with, “Look, Miss, it’s my fault: I invited him to get in front of me.” she shoves him, and is threatening to call the cops.

Things settle down after a minute of jawboning so the wife and I head in thinking it will get sorted out between them as grownups.

Wrong again.

When our friends don’t appear after a few minutes, we return to the scene of the egregious crime, where our male friend is now surrounded by four men in matching rent-a-cop shirts. I approach this scrum, annoyed but civilly, thinking the matter has been resolved, so we can get down to the margherita at hand.

Me:

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New logo’d guy who I’m fairly sure coaches youth football after he leaves the car lot: “Sir, we are way beyond that now, you need to leave.”

Me:

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Him: “The police have been called; you’re being trespassed.”

At first I’m unaware if he’s directing this at me or my buddy, then I blurt out:

“Hold on a second…Youre gal was way out of line.”

Then he repeats the “you’re being trespassed” line several times (painfully, as if he took a great deal of time to memorize the words), and faster than you can say “quatro fromaggi, par favore” the four of us are being led to the door. 86’d, as it were.

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(Several times during these various inane exchanges, I think about videotaping them, but I don’t because I don’t want to be “that guy”. Hindsight: I probably should have.)

Later the same day I hear through event organizers that the security company is thinking of “pressing charges” against us.

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This is the world we live in today.

Since adult perspective was sadly lacking in the whole kerfuffle, allow me to end with some.

These days, even something as innocent as a pizza tasting must be treated with the same heightened level of apprehension as rock concerts and political protests.

We have created a world that is both full of fear and afraid of missing out. Everyone wants to participate and have a good time, but even the most innocent of gatherings is fraught with concern over bad behavior. Because of this, businesses and governments seek to insulate themselves from allegations of failing to “protect us”, by, literally, keeping us in line.

What happens next is a self-fulfilling prophecy: Once the decision is made to ramp up security to absurd levels, what you get is a work staff that is looking for something to do. If all you have is a box of hammers (with IQs to match), everything is going to look like a nail. It is the perfect recipe for overreaction that doesn’t match the infraction.

There is no evidence that heightened security actually works, or that its effectiveness could be proven even if it did. (How do you gauge the level of bad things that don’t happen?) All we know is that loathsome, boorish, even murderous behavior is at an all time high, and all the security theater in the world hasn’t changed that. (I’ll grant you that big, beefy dudes are probably useful when it comes to tossing out obnoxious drunks at bars, concerts, and sports events.)

If you feel safer going through the ridiculous gauntlet in airports these days (even if they are wholly ineffective at their job), then I am happy for you, even if you’re fooling yourself. And if you enjoy walking up to a food festival and seeing a phalanx of puffed up guards scanning the crowd like low-rent watchmen looking for drugs, then enjoy your hall monitors.

As for me, as usual, my instincts were right. I should’ve turned tail as soon as I saw the guards and the queues. Incidents like this give me yet another reason to avoid the sheep-herding, shoulder-rubbing, warmed-over shitshows of food events.

Give me a decent meal at a good restaurant any day.

Postscript:

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After our defenestration, We repaired to Esther’s Kitchen and Garagiste and had a fine time tucking into a fabulous lunch with no lines, no security, easier conversation and better seating. Then, later the same day, we drove to Rosa Ristorante for a bite of one of Rob Moore’s gorgeous pies (below).

Better food. Better wine. Better people.

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Postscript #2: If you want to hear more about this tempest in a teapot, tune into our new food podcast, Eat. Talk. Repeat. this Friday for the full Monty.