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Tags: Guy Savoy / Caesars Palace / Fine Dining / Restaurants / Awards / → All Tags

Sin City Gets Screwed on 30 'Most Important' Restaurant List

We gotta call it like we see it, and we don’t think the folks behind Opinionated About Dining know their ass from their elbow when it comes to guiding “where to eat and why you should eat there” judging from their 30 ‘Most Important’ restaurants list.

Yeah, it’s no big shocker that French Laundry by Thomas Keller in Napa, took home top honors and a perfect score (yawn) on their almighty list, but seriously, out of 30 spots, Las Vegas only managed to land one measly spot – Guy Savoy coming in at #14 with a score of 97.00?

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Tags: Fine Dining / Guy Savoy / Caesars Palace / → All Tags

Eat Guy Savoy Five Different Ways (And It's Affordable Too)

Thank sweet Jesus that Guy Savoy has finally made its super-luxe cuisine semi-more affordable to the foodie masses. We seem to recall experiencing complete and total sticker shock when the Caesars Palace haute eatery first opened – wasn’t the 16-course prix fixe menu running around $350 per head?

Prices are a bit more pocketbook friendly these days, starting at $98 per person. That’s a steal for sampling the fare of a Michelin three-star chef. For those who prefer to play it big, never fear, there’s still a (gasp) $750 per person option.

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Tags: Food / Fine Dining / Restaurant Week / → All Tags

Eat, Save, Help During Vegas Restaurant Week

It’s one thing to want to save some money, but a true mitzvah to save dough while supporting a good cause. Like the "Help Out By Helping Out!" event being held during Restaurant Week, August 31 through September 6, 2009.

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Tags: Food / Local Hangouts / Fine Dining / Off The Strip / → All Tags

Todd's Unique Dining :: Vegas' Secret Foodie Destination

There are six ratings of "28" in the 2009 Zagat guide for Vegas in the category of Top Food. Among them: Guy Savoy, Nobu, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. There's one name that isn't internationally recognized, however: Todd Clore, of Todd's Unique Dining. It's because Clore's bistro - a tiny affair, manned by him nightly, tucked away in the corner of a Green Valley strip mall, about ten minutes from the Strip - doesn't advertise, forgoes celebrity magnetism, and doesn't have the glitz, glamor, and pull-out-the-stops special effects that the other ones do. Instead: they have incredible food that speaks for itself, at ridiculously low prices. And they have a local following - ravenously awaiting Todd's return from vacation, tomorrow evening - to prove it.

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Tags: Joel Robuchon / Cheap Vegas / MGM Grand / Restaurants / Fine Dining / → All Tags

Joel Robuchon Now Serving A 'Unique' Dinner For Under $40

If we had our way, you would find us eating out every night of the week in Vegas. But often what stops us is not just the fear of cholesterol and extra pounds but the damage that dining out in Vegas does to our bank accounts.

Yet lately, there's been ways to enjoy some of Sin City's best restaurants on the cheap. Like the plethora of Happy Hour menus in town or the new recession-friendly menus like the Halfsteak menu at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak.

And now, we're one step closer to affordable dining at Robochon with the new L'Unique menu at the L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon inside the MGM Grand.

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Tags: Restaurants / Wynn / Bartolotta / Paul Bartolotta / Fine Dining / James Beard Awards / → All Tags

The Wynn's Paul Bartolotta Wins James Beard Award

Chef Paul Bartolotta of Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at the Wynn was announced as the winner of the James Beard Award for best chef in the southwest region for 2009 yesterday. Having had the opportunity to enjoy a meal at Bartolotta recently, we have only one thing to say: congrats on a well-deserved honor, Chef!

The award, announced by the James Beard Foundation at a ceremony in New York City's Lincoln Center, marks the second such honor chef Bartolotta has won; he received his first James Beard Award in 1994 for the midwest region for his work at his Chicago restaurant, Spiaggia.

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Tags: Fine Dining / Downtown / Classic Vegas / → All Tags

Revisit an Old-School Gourmet Room at Hugo's Cellar

Downtown Vegas is not known for taking part in the dining revolution that captivated the Strip beginning in the late 1990s. In fact, the downtown crowd is the sort that favors cheap buffets and all-night coffee shops rather than the latest celebrity chef-helmed eatery.

Or, they’re simply more likely to obtain their daily caloric intake via margaritas guzzled from a football-shaped cup. Either way, we don’t judge.

There are a few interesting restaurants to check out there, though, and Hugo’s Cellar – the partially subterranean “gourmet room” at the Four Queens, is one of them, if only because it’s in a 1970s time warp.

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Tags: Fine Dining / Shows / Wynn / Marc Poidevin / Restaurants / → All Tags

'Switch' It Up at Encore

The Las Vegas Strip has long been the place to go for dinner and a show. But if you don't have the patience for both, then save yourself some time at Encore’s Switch restaurant. This unique offering doesn’t have a traditional entertainment component—there are no dancing girls, no post-meal spectacle. No, here the restaurant is, itself, a stage.

Order an appetizer—sautéed Sonoma foie gras perhaps—and just about the time you’re plate is being cleared, the stirring music turns on, the walls rise, the ceiling opens up, and the ambiance of Switch, well … switches, to something entirely different.

Leave it to Steve Wynn to take dinner theatre up a notch.

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Tags: Fine Dining / Restaurants / Celeb Chefs / Joel Robuchon / MGM Grand / → All Tags

Go Casual at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

Vegas’ restaurants earned it a place on the nation’s fine dining roster roughly a decade ago. However, the arrival of French culinary god Joël Robuchon earned the city the lion’s share of the global attention it’s received in the last three years. In 2008, when Joël Robuchon at The MGM Grand earned Sin City's only three-star Michelin rating, he elevated the city’s status in the culinary world to its highest level yet. So the question is: how can you experience some of this culinary wizardry?

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Tags: Fine Dining / Taste of Wynn / Restaurants / → All Tags

Dine For Less With The 'Taste of Wynn' Special Menus

Savvy epicureans can indulge in the fine lineup of restaurants at Wynn and Encore for practically peanuts by requesting the “Taste of Wynn” menus. Some of the menus are strictly offered during early-bird hours, but a few are being offered all evening during the midweek period.

Participating in the promotion is Michelin two-star recipient Alex, which offers a three-course meal for a modest $95 before tax and tip. And this is no dumbed-down, banquet-caliber version of Alex’s acclaimed cuisine, either. Diners can choose from a first course of butter-poached lobster or black truffle risotto, a second course of roasted beef tenderloin accompanied by bordelaise or crispy onaga with ponzu reduction, and dessert consisting of either vanilla citrus parfait with Campari sorbet or a chocolate caramel “bombe.”

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Tags: Fine Dining / Restaurants / Bars / Wynn / Burger Joints / → All Tags

Daniel Boulud at the Wynn for 'Fancy' Bar Food

At the foot of curved escalator separating Parasol Up and Parasol Down – the two fancifully themed bars with a lake view at The Wynn – is Daniel Boulud Brasserie, one of Las Vegas’ best places to meet friends for a light meal and glass of champagne.

This Michelin one-star establishment is unique among the eateries at Steve Wynn’s properties with famous-name chefs on the marquee, in that Mr. Boulud is not typically – or even regularly – in the kitchen.

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