When I phoned Gaurav ("Garv") Varma to ask about the authenticity of the food at his new restaurant, Chandelier, he was so confident I would like it he gave me a money-back guarantee. So far, I've eaten there three times, and I haven't collected a penny.
There is one small disconnect, though, with regard to the distinctively Middle Eastern fare predominating here. Its menu is a hotbed of Lebanese, Indian and Italian influence, but Chandelier calls itself Mediterranean, like so many other restaurants of a similar ilk. I like Mediterranean cuisine as much as the next fellow, but I wish restaurateurs didn't feel obligated to draw in customers with the usual boomer buzzwords.
But, okay, since Lebanon does have a coastline on the Mediterranean, let's give them a pass, this one time. Especially since the food here is so consistently good. The hummus is the best in the city, for instance. It's a vaguely smoky puree of garbanzo beans and tahini, a sesame paste, the whole shebang drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, all of which is pure magic on triangles of warm pita bread.
Come late at night, and Chandelier morphs into a hookah lounge, with a lively bar. The restaurant is attractive enough, given its slightly inauspicious location in the rear of a mini-mall; it's painted in soft pastels, and decorated with floor-to-ceiling curtains framing cozy booths, a number of framed daggers straight out of Scheherezade and faux granite tabletops.
On a recent visit, the waiter plied us with complimentary pita triangles and a bowl of coral-colored dip, which turned out to be an Indian-inspired tomato-cream sauce used in the menu's chicken makhni, a delicious entrée served with lemon rice. We couldn't get enough of the stuff and wanted even more when the Indian beer arrived.
But the menu had us thinking Lebanon. Mezze, or Lebanese appetizers, are wonderful, and the category is one of this restaurant's strong suits. I've already praised the hummus, but felafel—ground garbanzo-bean patties fried to a crisp straw color—and baba ghannouj, an eggplant puree with a smokiness achieved by smoking the eggplant with its skin still on, are both great, as good as any I've had in Las Vegas.
Kibbe, small torpedoes of bulgur wheat and ground beef, with a savory chopped-meat and pine-nut filling, are also delicious, although small and, at $2.50 each, a bit pricey, especially when it becomes clear that you crave at least three or four of them. Ditto the vine leaves, stuffed with a filling of rice, redolent of olive oil and aromatic spice.
While my vegetarian friend, Steve, contented himself with a bowl of black-bean soup swirled with a red-pepper puree, I enjoyed a tandoori wrap, pieces of ruddy, spice-rubbed chicken breast tucked into a tomato-colored pita with mint sauce, romaine, tomatoes and green onions. We shared fattoush, a Lebanese salad of lettuce, cucumber and tomato with hunks of toasted pita bread, but the olive oil and lemon juice vinaigrette was a bit sharp for my taste.
Coming back for dinner with a few meat lovers, no one could resist the mixed grill, an enormous platter of three meats, all perfectly executed. The first, shish kabab, was a skewer of prime beef cut into chunks after having been nicely marinated in garlic, onion and olive oil. Flanking it was shish tawook, chicken given a similar treatment, and kofta kabab, a cylindrical Middle Eastern hamburger.
I'd also give high marks to the seafood here, especially olive-crusted catfish, which uses black olives and sun-dried tomatoes to coat the fish before cooking, and an oddball creation called Jack's honey shrimp, which employs that timeless Levantine cooking trick called Jack Daniel's.
All entrées offer the option of white or lemon rice, a mild, yellowish pilaf, or the more European idea of mashed potatoes. The vegetables tend to be a mix of zucchini and carrots, and I'd prefer something else. Zucchini is probably the cheapest vegetable on the market, so it tends to be served everywhere. I realize food cost is a consideration, but I'm ready for a different vegetable, if anyone's listening.
The Italian part of the menu runs to pastas, a penne marinara, fettucine Alfredo, and a vegetarian lasagna, called lasagna Primavera. I didn't order one, because I was influenced by the age-old axiom "never order a steak in a seafood restaurant."
We did, at the waiter's behest, order some baklava, made for us, he said, "by a wonderful woman." She may be a wonderful woman, but her baklava was not. I like mine done in many layers, the way a Greek grandmother makes it, not a wad of phyllo on each side of a nut filling. Which is to say, I prefer my baklava Mediterranean style.