It’s the most precise, delicate version of a niçoise salad you’ve ever tasted, beautiful cubes of raw, deep-red bigeye tuna decorating the plate with haricots verts, cherry tomatoes, hard-boiled quail eggs, fingerling potatoes and slivers of white anchovy. Each traditional ingredient of this very traditional salad is isolated and honed into its superior self, then neatly arranged like a master artist’s brushstrokes across canvas. Yes, it’s just a salad ($16.50), but it’s a great one.

It’s a favorite from the new summer menu at Bouchon. Thomas Keller recently visited his Venetian restaurant to launch the new seasonal specialties and mingle with guests at a couple of events celebrating the summer.

There are so many classic standards on Bouchon’s menu, dishes that couldn’t possibly be removed, that it seems there is little room for new options. But many of the changes are small, delicious tweaks, like the ragout of summer pole beans, sweet corn and hen of the woods mushrooms served with the roasted chicken ($29.75), or the rotating summer veggies that dot the Parisian gnocchi ($22.50).

First courses that are stunning any time of year include the escargots a la Bourguignonne ($16.50), parsley-garlic butter snails in puff pastry, and the salmon tartare ($16.50) with red onion, capers and crème fraîche. Entrée highlights include roasted leg of lamb with ratatouille ($35), pan-seared swordfish with artichoke, fennel, carrots and eggplant ($34) and moules frites, Washington Penn Cove mussels steamed with dijon, saffron and white wine with fries ($28.50).

Great chefs Daniel Boulud and Michael Mina have opened stellar French brasseries on the Strip in the past year, but the rock-solid, 11-year-old Bouchon is unaffected. During my summer dinner, I chatted with guests from California who visit Vegas several times a year, always stay at Venetian and always dine multiple times at Bouchon. Have they tried the other, new restaurants? Sure. And liked them very much. But they always come back to Bouchon, and I have to agree.

Bouchon Venetian, 702-414-6200. Breakfast: Monday-Thursday, 7 a.m.-1 p.m. Brunch: Friday-Sunday, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Oyster Bar: Daily, 3-10 p.m. Dinner: Daily, 5-10 p.m.