Wynn Las Vegas has been a consistent leader in fine dining on the Strip since the resort debuted in 2005 and followed up three years later with the opening of Encore. So the luxury resort is a logical and natural choice to host The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony, and it’s no surprise that Wynn is launching a culinary festival, Revelry, to coincide with the event.
But this fancy food festival was in development well before the awards folks decided to come to town, according to Wynn vice president of culinary operations and restaurant development Chris Lee.
“Our CEO Craig Billings is so forward thinking on what’s next and he has a soft spot for F&B, so doing a food and wine festival has always been in our world to create,” he says. “It’s a great honor for the hotel and for Las Vegas to have the 50 Best, and it is such a powerhouse now.”
But Revelry was going to happen either way, and Lee says it’s designed to become an annual event, likely shifting to springtime next year to avoid summer temperatures. Running June 5-8 at various Wynn restaurants and venues (info and tickets are available at lasvegasrevelry.com), the celebration includes: the East Meets West dinner with chefs from Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau at Wing Lei; a master mixology class with Mariena Mercer Boarini and Kate Gerwin of Happy Accidents at Casa Playa; and the All-Star Chefs Dinner at Lakeside, where Lee will collaborate with Brad Kilgore of Kilgore Culinary, Angie Mar of Le B, Philip Tessier of Press, Margarita Manzke of République and Wynn pastry chef Jen Yee.
And then there’s The Feast, a sort of festival within the festival on June 8 at the Wynn Event Pavilion and Lawn, a grand tasting with more visiting guest chefs cooking across “these four immersive worlds,” Lee explains. “We wanted to elevate the [food and wine festival] standard with some Vegas style, to come up with something kind of big. So we’ve built these worlds based on Tulum on the Mexican coast, the Casbah Marketplace with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean, the Shibuya Crossing which is this Japanese urban feel, and this Texas ranch with specialty cuts of beef doing different barbecue and grilling and Americana-style food.
“So you enter a different world and there’s different design, entertainment and music—it’s like going to Disney, all around food.”
Lee has been at Wynn for almost two years and has been named Rising Star Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation and Best New Chef by Food & Wine. He’s helmed two Michelin star restaurants and helped launch and manage several acclaimed restaurant and hotel concepts. And he’s watched the evolution of fine dining in Las Vegas from afar before stepping into the scene and says he’s excited to see what’s next.
“In the early to mid-2000s, Vegas was a mecca for all chefs and we always looked at it as cutting-edge because the greatest chefs in the world were going to Vegas: Guy Savoy, Hubert Keller, Alain Ducasse, Jean-Georges Vongerichten,” Lee says. “As the years went on, the city turned to TV personalities, especially on the Strip, and turned into a more commercial mindset, not a bad thing. That helped grow it to where it is today.
“Being a nerd to the industry, I still love going to the local restaurants and asking who’s who, and there’s some inspiring cuisine going on off the Strip for sure. I’m still of that old-school philosophy that you go to a restaurant because of the chef and they are there every day cooking their food, and their passion drives that level of excellence.”
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