For well over a decade, Las Vegas has been a Wolfgang Puck kind of town. But for many locals, fine or informal dining at excellent establishments such as Spago or Postrio is probably reserved mostly for visits with vacationing friends to the trompe l’oeil tourist caverns of the Forum Shops and other Strip interiors.
Now, however, the Austro-Californian master has opened his eye to the wide-open vistas of Las Vegas’ Mojave Desert setting and created an inherently “local” place. The Springs Preserve Café by Wolfgang Puck is the dining concession for Vegas’ new, immense botanical-cultural-educational attraction.
Attraction + concession. This equation might bring to mind a hot-dog cart or a window proffering premade sandwiches. This is Puck territory, though. In the airy, utilitarian-but-mod-furnished café, Puck’s ground team—headed up by Executive Chef Peter Sherlock—brings an array of artful food to a sunny view of Vegas and the xeriscaped scenes outside.
The café’s menu does fall largely in the pub-style arena of sandwiches, salads and individual pizzas. But the food is legitimately of a level of quality and freshness that’s unlikely to be found in most pubs around the Valley.
In the café, guests order and pay at the front in deli fashion, but servers bring out orders on stoneware with cloth napkins and actual flatware.
Starting with the soup selections, all is made in-house, such as the great roasted heirloom tomato soup garnished with bruschetta, goat cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. A sweet white corn pottage with eggplant caviar, fire-roasted red peppers and fresh basil nicely unites American and European flavors.
As the Springs Preserve is a garden at heart, it’s apropos that leafy salads are prominent on the café menu. That Puck innovation, the Chinois Chinese chicken salad, makes an appearance. This toss-up of roasted free-range chicken, romaine lettuce, Napa cabbage, radicchio, cashews, crispy wonton strips and honey-soy dressing is one of the defining creations of the Food Revolution of the past three decades. A classic Cobb salad is given the Puck touch with organically raised constituents like avocado, tomatoes, romaine and applewood-smoked bacon. A baby greens salad and an assertive baby arugula, Belgian endive and watercress mix with apples, candied walnuts and Roquefort cheese (a variety used too infrequently these days) are other choices.
As Puck garnered fame partially for his pizza inventions in the ’80s, his Springs Preserve place has a mandatory fire-heated brick oven in full view of the ordering line. Sherlock’s staff pulls out eclectic varieties of pie from the oven’s interior. One good choice is the Americana-influenced pulled-pork pizza, which is studded with blistered bell peppers, caramelized sweet corn, Bermuda onions, cilantro and barbecue sauce. More adventurous is a pizza with spicy Oregon shrimp, leeks, peppers, tomato and cilantro. Traditionally minded four-cheese and pepperoni styles are baked, too. And this pepperoni is the naturally good stuff, not bargain-bin, nitrate-laden product.
The café really hits it in the sweet spot of informal dining with its sandwich board. The American Kobe-style beef sliders go gourmet with sharp-flavored, aged white cheddar and a luscious herbed remoulade. The restaurant’s barbecue salmon BLT puts this toothsome but healthy fish to good use with a savory bacon counterpart.
On the subject of salmon, Chef Sherlock points out that the Puck organization adheres to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch list for all its fish and seafood purchasing. The continually updated database helps restaurants avoid buying inventory from over-harvested ocean areas.
“I look at that list every week,” said Sherlock, speaking with me at one of the café’s clean-lined and environmentally friendly constructed tables. “I call my vendors and say, ‘Okay, this is the fish I’m looking for, do you carry it?’”
The entire Puck organization now adheres to the WELL program, a nine-point initiative that ensures even the little peas in the café’s substantial rigatoni Bolognese are as fresh and natural as possible.
“It’s about being sustainable, sustainable across the board,” said Sherlock.
Chef Sherlock also rolls out daily and seasonal specials. I recently enjoyed the best beef stew I’ve had in ages there—Guinness stout and good steak go a long way in revving up this staple. I also knife-and-forked a giant, savory crab-meat burger that was stacked up like a mini version of the Preserve’s rocky displays outside.
The spring menu just kicked in (Sherlock adjusts the repertoire four times a year). With it, even more of the fantastic heirloom tomatoes Puck restaurants procure from farmer’s markets in Southern California will show up in creations. These delicious globes range far beyond the plain red spectrum, heading into hues of pomegranate magenta, eggplant purple and sunflower yellow.
For one special spring entrée, Chef Sherlock is featuring poached scallops in tomato water. For this water, he purees raw fruits with herbs and filters out the resulting flavor-infused essences.
“It’s almost crystal clear,” he said of the tomato water. “There’s no pulp. All the flavors you mix in all come out pure.”
Puck and Sherlock’s combined work at the Springs Preserve Café stands on its own merits, to be sure. But eating at the establishment is taken several notches higher by the amazing atmosphere of the attraction itself. The café’s menu not only tastes great and is healthy, but it’s also offered up in gorgeous and educational surroundings, inside and out. It’s a great thing for us that the Puck empire now has a local touch, too.
Springs Preserve Café by Wolfgang Puck
333 S. Valley View Blvd. 822-8716. Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Suggested dishes: Chinois Chinese chicken salad, $9; Kobe-style beef sliders, $12, barbecue salmon BLT, $11; rigatoni Bolognese, $11.