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Hubert Keller’s ‘Secrets of a Chef’ premieres January 11 on PBS

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Hubert Keller
Photo: Steve Marcus

There aren’t many personalities quite like Chef Hubert Keller, which is why his latest TV show, Secrets of a Chef: #LovinLasVegas is a must for any food fanatic.

Born in Alsace, France, Keller trained under late chefs Paul Haeberlin and Paul Bocuse before moving to San Francisco in 1982. Keller opened a spinoff of his San Francisco jewel Fleur de Lys—along with his Burger Bar—at Mandalay Bay in 2004. Fleur de Lys eventually closed before reopening as Fleur in 2010.

Keller is a Top Chef master, author of three cookbooks and, in our experience, one of the most warm-hearted chefs around.

The Weekly caught up with him inside Fleur on Tuesday to talk about the impetus behind the Vegas edition of his new series, which premieres January 11 on Vegas PBS and continues Saturdays at 12:30 p.m.

“When I have some time off, we’re out eating,” Keller says of his main hobby. “I have never been bored about that. With my wife, we started [Fleur de Lys] in San Francisco 34 years ago, and that’s what we always did—working really hard and eating out. People think it’s boring, but it’s really not, and thank God we both love that. That’s our distraction.”

Leave it to Keller to know where and what to eat. His PBS series will focus on the chef’s favorite local restaurants, which include spots both on and off the Strip, the latter of which he refers to as “a new movement. “It’s amazing,” he says of the Vegas culinary scene.

Included in his nine-episode show are neighborhood restaurants Sparrow + Wolf by Brian Howard, Mitsuo Endo’s Aburiya Raku, Khai Vu’s Mordeo, Esther’s Kitchen by James Trees and Downtown’s historic Atomic Liquors.

“Compared to San Francisco, where you have all these neighborhood restaurants, that was missing [in Las Vegas] … and then finally it happened a few years ago,” Keller says. “And look at the success of these places. I felt it was important to mention some of those restaurants [off-Strip]."

“I believed very early on that Vegas would become a major restaurant city,” Keller continues. Even before he lived here, the chef put together a group that would come to Las Vegas to dine out and research the city’s food scene.

“I had created a little club called LV Seven. It was seven chefs from San Francisco, and we used to come here every three or four months and spend two or three days. I could sense that there was something happening here. And certainly it did. Every major chef is here.”

Today, Mandalay Bay’s Fleur stands as one of the best spots to enjoy a classic French meal with a modern, global twist.

“Sixteen years ago, when I finally signed a deal to come to Vegas, some chefs said, ‘I guess the losers sign in Vegas. If you can not make it anywhere else, you’ll make it in Vegas, because there’s always a crowd there.’ Today, it actually makes me smile and laugh,” he says. “Today, if you’re in another city or country and you don’t have a restaurant in Vegas, you feel like the loser, because you should be a part of that city. No other city has the same image.”

The PBS show will also focus on the Strip itself, with a back-of-house look at the kitchens inside the Venetian, something Keller predicts will stun anyone who has ever dined on the Strip. Also covered on Secrets of a Chef: Chica, Mon Ami Gabi, Momofuku, Rivea and more.

“I picked those restaurants because there’s a history and there’s something connecting us,” Keller says.

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