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A Las Vegas Food Critic Tells Us The 7 Best Restaurants For High Rollers
In the fall of 1998, when the Bellagio opened in Las Vegas, the stirrings of a revolution in fine dining were taking hold in the city.
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But it wasn't until the middle of the last decade, when renowned French chefs Joël Robuchon and Guy Savoy came to town, that the reputation of Sin City as a foodie town became a little more refined.
"High rollers are big," Curtas says. "Vegas has become a food destination unto itself."
Curtas is the author, along with Las Vegas's two other chief restaurant critics, Max Jacobson and Al Mancini, of Eating Las Vegas: The 50 Essential Restaurants (available on Amazon). He is described in the book as "our resident food snob...who is practically addicted to haute cuisine."
Which makes him a perfect guide to the city's fine dining establishments. In Eating Las Vegas, the writers classify a "very expensive" restaurant as $125 and up, though the really expensive restaurants will cost $300 or more.
We asked Curtas to guide us through the best expensive restaurants in the city, which, for him, seemed an easy task. French cuisine dominates the list.
According to Curtas, though, these restaurants might not be worth the check if you don't have the right palate.
"On any night of the week, there are people blowing a big wad because they have it," Curtas says, "but two thirds of the customers are serious food lovers."
Joël Robuchon Restaurant at MGM Grand
"A tiny little jewel box of a restaurant," Curtas says. "It's very small, very pristine, and feels like you're in a dining salon in Paris."
French chef Joël Robuchon's eponymous restaurant is the first and only restaurant in Las Vegas to earn Michelin's three-star designation.
A 16-course degustation menu runs $425 a person; specialties include Osetra caviar and gelée of green asparagus.
Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace
"More modern and edgy in its design," according to Curtas, Guy Savoy is the sister to its flagship Paris restaurant of the same name.
Named after Guy Savoy, the Michelin three-starred French chef, an average check at this restaurant runs about $250.
A ten-course meal is the pièce de résistance, offering specialties like artichoke and black truffle soup and spiced crispy sea bass.
Bar Masa at Aria
Yet another namesake, Chef Masa Takayama's Bar Masa is the most respected Japanese restaurant in the city.
Curtas says that the restaurant, which is an offshoot of Chef Masa's New York establishment, has fish flown in from Japan four times a week.
A $250 six-course meal offers such raw delicacies as Wagyu beef tartare and Kawahagi sashimi with white truffle.
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