Fine diners take a chance on Las Vegas

In this story: 'Major culinary city' Wine time Fad-prone town RELATED STORIES, SITES

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Best known for bargain buffets and slot machines, Las Vegas has a secret life. Top food critics say it has become one of the top U.S. cities for fine dining.

But don't bet the family farm on it just yet.

Before you charter a Lear jet to the desert city in search of haute cuisine, be forewarned: The same critics say high-end dining is limited to a small number of restaurants at major casinos and some question the casinos' long-term commitment to keeping their bigtime beaneries open.

For the moment, at least, most food critics agree that Las Vegas deserves a place at the table of top U.S. cities for fine dining. Consider that:

• 11 of the nation's 52 master sommeliers -- the highest form of wine master -- are based in Las Vegas;

• Gourmet magazine says five of the top 180 U.S. eateries are in Sin City, and its restaurant critic says the best U.S. restaurant between the two coasts -- chef Jean-Louis Palladin's Napa -- is there;

• Many of the nation's top restaurateurs now are represented in high-end hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.

Nationally known restaurateurs with locations in Las Vegas include New York's Charlie Palmer (Aureole), New Orleans' Emeril Lagasse (Emeril's), San Francisco's Michael Mina (Aqua), and a who's-who of Los Angeles-area culinary personas including Wolfgang Puck (Spago), Joachim Splichal (Pinot), Piero Selvaggio (Valentino), Nobu Matsuhisa (Matsuhisa) and the pair of Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken (Border Grill).

Food and wine critics say the boom in fine dining dates back about four or five years to an explosion in luxury casino development on the Strip. Nearly all of the city's high-end restaurants now are there, in swanky resorts like Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, the Venetian and Paris Las Vegas.

"It's getting to be a major culinary city thanks to the efforts of casinos to broaden the city's appeal to include a lot of different things that are family- and gourmet-friendly," said Tim Zagat, chairman of Zagat Surveys of restaurants in 45 markets nationwide.

Zagat said his company has published a guide to Las Vegas restaurants for about six years. "Before that it wasn't terribly interesting as a food city. It was famous for buffets that were cheap as an inducement for people to gamble."

Well-known French chef Julian Serrano was one of the first major players to come to Vegas two years ago when casino mogul Steve Wynn talked him into leaving a comfortable position at San Francisco's Masa to set up Picasso at the new Bellagio.

"Timing in life is always important," said Serrano, a native of Spain. "At Masa's I was there 15 years and I was starting to get tired because I reached everything I was supposed to reach."

He acknowledged being "very sad" for his first six months in the desert city but said things have improved markedly in the year and a half since then.

"People from New York come to Vegas to see restaurants," Serrano said. "People from San Francisco come every day to see restaurants. People from everyplace in the country -- they come to Vegas to see what's going on here."

The sudden rise in the city's culinary position emboldened local organizers to host the first Las Vegas Odyssey, billed as "a celebration of wine, food and art," slated for October 26-29. The festival will consist of 11 events, each costing between $100 and $350, said co-founder Virginia Thompson.

"We're proud of the way Las Vegas is moving and we want to showcase it for the rest of the world," Thompson said. "This couldn't have happened two years ago."

Adding to its new food prowess, Las Vegas achieved another culinary distinction this year when Aureole in Mandalay Bay became one of only 87 restaurants worldwide -- and the first in Las Vegas -- to win Wine Spectator magazine's highest honor, the Grand Award.

"They've proved they can build pyramids, Eiffel Towers and Manhattan skylines in a matter of months," said Wine Spectator Executive Editor Thomas Matthews. "Now they've also proved it with wine lists."

While high-end dining is certainly present on the Strip, the city still lacks much in the way of mid-range options seen in most major cities, said Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic for Gourmet magazine.

"If you're going to spend, say, $100 per person on a meal, Las Vegas has a lot of choices. But if you want spend $25 a person and have a good meal, it's not so good," Gold said. "There's a lot of places that cater to every level of tourism, but because everything is artificial this is not a homegrown scene. It's like a wood veneer over a piece of furniture."

No one doubts that Las Vegas has come of age on the fine-dining map, but the critics were more divided on whether its meteoric rise in the kitchen can be maintained, especially in light of the city's fad-prone nature.

"The question is how long it will last," said Matthews of Wine Spectator. "Vegas has a penchant for reinventing itself. It could be this emphasis is a passing fancy, just like family-friendly was in the early 90's. ... One gets the sense that if the hotels decide the restaurants are more trouble than they're worth, they'll be gone."

But Zagat said he believes haute cuisine and bargain buffets can coexist in Las Vegas well into the future. "I don't think it's going to be a passing thing," he said.

"It's got an awful lot of money passing through it. You can't be a high-end resort hotel without having good food. It's serious enough that just about every major chef in the country has been asked" to set up a Las Vegas restaurant.

Indeed, the future looks good for dining in Vegas if top chefs like Serrano are to be believed.

"I am happy with where I am now. I am happy with my work," he said. "I am a big fellow, a big name. Vegas is no bad place to be. A lot of people, I think they have changed. In the old days, people think Vegas was a terrible place to be. And now it's not."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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