Dining Features
A Near Hit
Former Mayor Oscar Goodman’s steak house doesn’t quite ‘meat’ expectations
March 1st, 2012
I recently wrote a short history of the Las Vegas steak house for the April issue of Saveur magazine in which I included a quote from former Mayor Oscar Goodman, whose moniker is on a new steak house under the dome at downtown’s revamped Plaza Hotel & Casino. “No one cares where the meat comes from,” he told me. “They want a big martini, a few broads and a nice evening.” Mr. Goodman: That thinking is behind the times, even for the downtown crowd. Read more »
Accidental Restaurateurs
The Lee’s Liquor family adds a must-see Korean joint to their legacy
February 23rd, 2012
The mall is anchored by Greenland Market—which has a terrific food court—and Woonam Jung, a spiffy new casual Korean restaurant with a contemporary look rather than traditional. Initially, the Lee family leased the restaurant space to a tenant. But he bugged out in 2010 and left the family, quite by accident, in the restaurant business. Read more »
Haute Plates
From Japan to Paris on $20 a day: Café de Japon offers inviting, exotic eats on a student’s budget
December 22nd, 2011
We’re back in the wacky world of Japanese cooking, this time at a kissaten, or a Japanese-style coffee shop. Chef Kiichi Okabe, formerly of Sushi Roku at the Forum Shops, decided to open one of these places, a concept I frequented in various forms as a student in Tokyo. Read more »
The Restaurant Awards
Our second annual celebration of Las Vegas’ best dining
October 13th, 2011
After four years of hard times, everyone is ready to sound the death knell for fine dining in Las Vegas. But rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, we had so many excellent dining experiences to consider this year that it was quite a challenge to decide which ones to single out. After more than a few passionate discussions among Vegas Seven’s food-and-beverage team, we’ve come up with a “best” list that shows that our restaurant scene is not only very much alive, but still evolving. Read more »
Dining
Front and Central
All eyes are on Caesars Palace as Michel Richard opens his new all-hours bistro. Our critic dives in.
September 29th, 2011
It’s no mean feat to reproduce a successful restaurant in a different town. But Washington, D.C. chef Michel Richard is making the attempt at Central, his new 24/7 bistro in Caesars Palace. Central took Washington, D.C., by storm with Richard’s combination of classic French dishes such as moules frites, American comfort foods including fried chicken, a superb, caper-y filet mignon tartare, and a large array of his trademark desserts, all available here. Read more »
Worthy of a Double-take
Laudable wining and dining at Town Square’s Double Helix Wine & Whiskey Lounge
September 22nd, 2011
The wine bar has slowly been working its way into the American consciousness, but it has a long way to go before it attains the popularity of a beer hall or cocktail lounge. La Cave at the Wynn is going great guns, but Nora’s Wine Bar in Boca Park recently went belly-up. But in my book, Double Helix has all the tools to give it staying power. Read more »
Dining
The Shell Game
Lobster for you, lobster for me—LEV Group’s latest dish is already clawing its way to the top
September 15th, 2011
We’re a popular test market for restaurant chains, but it isn’t often that a chain is born here and later franchised. Lobster ME, a new place in the Miracle Mile Shops for classic New England lobster concoctions, aims to break that mold. The boys from LEV Restaurant Group already have their eyes on franchising, and after a few short weeks have received a flood of national press. They may really be on to something this time. Read more »
Dining
Where There’s Smoke
Gilley’s rounds up tasty cowpoke fare on the wild, wild west side of the Strip
September 8th, 2011
This honky-tonk bar and restaurant was founded by Mickey Gilley in Pasadena, Texas, in 1971, as anyone old enough or brave enough to have seen the film Urban Cowboy will attest. Gilley’s Las Vegas—though only connected to the original in name and concept—is a vast space in TI with a dining area fronted by floor-to-ceiling glass windows affording a full Strip view. Read more »
Dining
Satisfaction Garantita
D.O.C.G.’s easy Italian is hard to beat
September 1st, 2011
The Strip needs a place like this, a combination of Henderson’s Settebello Pizzeria Napolitana and an Italian trattoria, where one can just as easily eat pasta with duck ragu as house-made stromboli or biscotti. Pizzaiolos slog away at the wood-burning oven located in the dead rear of this long, narrow dining room, where conversation is a challenge, if not a fantasy, because of the din. Read more »
Dining
A Colorful Culinary Canvas
At the heart of the Arts District, Bar + Bistro feeds downtown—and well!
August 25th, 2011
Downtown Las Vegas may come up short in the funk department when compared with Cincinnati’s Mt. Adams, San Francisco’s North Beach or SoHo in New York City, but thanks to places like husband-and-wife duo Wes Isbutt and Debra Heiser’s Bar + Bistro, we’re slowly, inexorably, catching up. Read more »
