One of my complaints about visiting journalists doing Vegas stories is that they tend to write essentially the same story based on the same template.
John (Mariani, also Esquire's food critic), that is exactly what you have done in your occasionally engaging and usually informative Internet newsletter, The Virtual Gourmet, (http://pages.prodigy.net/johnmariani/040524/):
"... It should be obvious that Las Vegas is not a great city in the sense that complex, culturally rich, history-making cities are. Vegas is what it is and probably will be for a long time—a gambling (sorry, "gaming") city offering good restaurants and lots of entertainers like Wayne Newton and Céline Dion. And for a city to be a great restaurant town it must have ethnic neighborhoods rife with small, wonderful storefront eateries; it has to have singular restaurants, not copies, whose elemental beauty is based on the personal style of the owner and its situation on a real waterfront or in a lush valley or overlooking a real river—not a manmade lake with dancing water fountains and decor designed to dazzle rather than express a personal spirit ...
"Wynn was the leader in ... bankrolling celebrated chefs from New York and L.A. to open spectacular restaurants that bore little or no resemblance to the originals. ... In only two cases did a major chef actually move to Vegas and cook there on a nightly basis—Juan Serrano at Picasso in Bellagio, and Alessandro Strata at Renoir in the Mirage. Thus grew the notion that, more than anywhere else, a chef manqué could rise to prominence and wealth without ever so much as brewing a cup of coffee in the restaurant that bears his name ..."
Let me be the first to agree with your observation that "Las Vegas is not a great city in the sense that complex, culturally rich, history making cities are." Anyone who thinks that Vegas is Florence, take two steps back. I'll even concede that a few Vegas restaurants, without naming names, are "only shadows of their originals."
But, in your mean-spirited and mysteriously vitriolic diatribe, you seem to have completely missed the boat, and it's obvious to me, that beyond your cursory and superficial observations, you don't know a damned thing about this town.
First of all, the main thesis of your piece, that chefs have to be present for any restaurant to be great, is as silly as it is reliquary. Do you really suppose Bocuse has cooked in his own restaurant during the past 20 years, or that Colicchio or Mario Batali, who both have a handful of restaurants in New York alone, are going to be present when the average bear dines in the Big Apple? (Yes, they will be there when you dine there, I have no doubt of that.)
The salient characteristics of a restaurant are concept and execution, and what makes it run is quality and consistency. If Thomas Keller's bistro, Bouchon, uses the same purveyors as his Napa Valley bistro, the end product is, by and large, as good in Vegas as it is in California.
" ... Now, the taste level has risen to theme park glamor, although tawdriness still abounds; indeed, casino shows, once titillatingly risqué, now ape the lower forms of sexual exhibitionism found in the lap dance venues off the Strip, and there is now a private pool area at one of the casino/hotels serviced by topless cocktail waitresses.
Greed is still the driving force of Vegas. Let's face it, Las Vegas is, for most visitors, a Disneyland for morons. If that seems harsh, consider that Vegas could not exist unless the overwhelming majority of its visitors leave town as losers, which strikes me as the kind of odds only a moron would entertain ..."
As to your contention that Vegas is a Disneyland for morons, that's about as fair as calling Disneyland, which has as many adult as children visitors, Vegas for those with arrested development.
A long time ago, the big Strip hotels found that they could make as much money with hospitality revenues as they do from gaming, and they are doing it. Last year, the Venetian's hospitality revenue came about equal to their gaming revenue, and others are trying to follow this model. People come to Las Vegas to be entertained, not to lose their money. Many tourists here probably gamble less than locals.
Finally, to your point about cities needing storefront ethnic restaurants in order to be a great restaurant town: While it is true that we are nowhere near LA, New York, Chicago or any other great American city in that department, in terms of per capita, we're up there with any American city with a comparable population.
During the past five years, I've written about, and enjoyed, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Puerto Rican and a huge number of other ethnic restaurants that you've never even heard of, unless you read my column from week to week.
So while I admire your energy and skills as a wordsmith, the bottom line is this. Tell me something I don't already know.
Or ask me.