There’s never been a better time to eat Las Vegas. As the Strip and the city around it have evolved, so has the Valley’s sprawling dining scene. From eat-your-way-through neighborhoods to groundbreaking restaurants, these 10 reasons are a right-now snapshot of why today truly is the Golden Age of Las Vegas dining.
3. The best chefs from all over the world come to Las Vegas
Wolfgang Puck, the global culinary icon who’s considered the first big-name chef to land in Las Vegas, was celebrating the 20th anniversary of Spago last year when he took some time to reflect on the vastly changed Vegas food landscape. No one else was here when Puck pioneered fine dining in the Forum Shops, and now, he said, “you have to ask who’s not here.”
The list of legendary chefs operating restaurants on the Strip—not celebrity chefs, necessarily, but true innovators, masters of cuisine—is long and impressive. Americans Thomas Keller, Michael Mina and Paul Bartolotta. Spaniards José Andrés and Julian Serrano. Frenchmen Hubert Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Joël Robuchon, Pierre Gagnaire and Guy Savoy. Gagnaire’s Twist is his only restaurant in the States; likewise for Savoy at Caesars Palace. They all specialize in mind-altering food and stunning service, and in Las Vegas there’s high demand for just that. There’s no other place in the world where so much talent is crammed so closely, and there’s on-the-rise talent, too: David Myers, whose Hinoki & the Bird in LA has been lauded as one of the best new restaurants in the country, maintains Comme Ça at Cosmopolitan.
But wait, there’s more: Foodie emperors Nobu Matsuhisa, Tom Colicchio and Mario Batali have or are expanding their local presence. Chicago’s Graham Elliot is working on a Vegas deal. Masaharu Morimoto is coming to the Mirage, and after a first try at Wynn, the great Daniel Boulud is returning to the Strip, this time at Venetian. Las Vegas has always been known as the entertainment capital of the world, and its magnetic pull on the planet’s top culinary artists has established it as a fine dining capital, too.
