Vibe dining, the alluring trend in which nightlife meets fine dining, isn’t exactly new. But veteran chef Joseph Elevado has a way of making every experience feel like the first time.
“I’ve always liked that kind of dining where you would go out, pregame for the evening or party for the evening wherever you were at,” says Elevado, executive chef of Zouk Group’s Fuhu, RedTail and Ayu Dayclub at Resorts World. “I was a lot younger then too, so vibe dining did kind of find me.”
The New York native, who opened the first Nobu in Las Vegas in 1999, redefined pan-Asian cuisine at trendy Treasure Island hot spot Social House back in 2006 and did it again several years later at Encore’s Andrea’s, which became one of the first Strip restaurants fully integrated into a nightclub (Surrender). The Weekly caught up with Elevado to discuss dining freedom at Zouk, working under the legendary Nobu Matsuhisa and more.
How has working at Zouk’s restaurants differed from other experiences you’ve had? At Zouk, I am definitely immersed in the nightclub culture, more than any of the other restaurants I was doing. I definitely have the ability to be creative here. The main goal for me when we opened was to embrace the original Fuhu in Malaysia, so I worked with some of the chefs out there.
Obviously, at that time, the pandemic was kind of in the middle of it, so we were talking through Teams and trying to figure out how things worked. I just kind of rolled with their menu, did my spin on what they did, and it’s been a totally immersive experience. For instance, [boxer] Canelo [Álvarez] had his afterparty on our patio for 100-plus people, and at the same time, we had Travis Scott having dinner in one of our private dining rooms for 20 people, plus another party for one of Canelo’s sponsors for Hennessy.
At Zouk, there’s been a lot more interaction with some of the talent. We have a Tiësto roll on our [Fuhu] menu and we also have a Zedd dish. It’s a lot of fun, a lot of creativity with the team.
Before coming to Vegas you worked under Nobu Matsuhisa for almost 10 years in New York City. What was that experience like? Amazing. I started there as a cook, and worked my way up being starstruck, of course, seeing all these different famous people in there. I mean, you couldn’t go through a service without seeing two or three celebrities having lunch or dinner at the original Nobu down on Hudson Street. It was an amazing experience. Nobu had a huge impact on my career and how I see things, how I view the restaurant and how I put my dishes together, how I treat my staff, the whole nine yards.
Does any of Nobu’s advice stand out? He always told me to cook from the heart. He was always so honest and very open. At that time, he had the original Nobu in New York. Then from there, he had Nobu London and then I went to Vegas to open Nobu Vegas. So he was traveling quite a bit. He wasn’t in the restaurant 24/7, but when he did come to visit and check everything out, he was always super genuine.
How did you fall in love with cooking? I’ve always enjoyed watching my mom and my grandmother cook when I was younger. They would make Filipino food. They would do lumpia, and I was always interested in what the process was.
I went to college for international marketing, of all things. I didn’t do so well, because I wasn’t really interested, [but] I had a friend who was going to New York Restaurant School on Canal Street, right above Tribeca. I went to visit her there and we talked about it, and I was like, this could be kind of fun. So I enrolled in culinary school, and it’s literally the best I’ve ever done in a school setting.
You spend a lot of time in the kitchens at Fuhu and RedTail. What dishes would you say are must-tries? The RedTail Burger is one of my favorites. It’s a patty with blue cheese, bacon and garlic aioli—it’s probably my go-to burger. Believe it or not, we also have Bolognese on the menu, and I think that’s pretty damn tasty too. For Fuhu, there’s a dish that’s at the Fuhu in Malaysia and it’s called a Sticky Lamb. Over there, they use a lamb shank, and they do this whole process where they rub it with coriander, cumin, all these different spices, and then they braise it and serve it with a sticky sauce made with gula melaka, which is a Malaysian coconut sugar or palm sugar. We took the same thing, but we did lamb chops instead, because in America everybody loves lamb chops. Those are pretty damn tasty.
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