Las Vegas Restaurants
In days gone by, Las Vegas food was famous primarily for cheap prime rib dinners and abundant, if pedestrian, buffets. Twenty-first century Vegas realizes that people consider dining as much an entertainment experience as watching a show or dancing the night away at a decadent nightspot and they have provided accordingly. The buffets are still there (and the cheap prime rib in some of the old Downtown casinos), keeping up with the times by offering wide varieties of cuisines in abundance for those who enjoy seeing what they want and taking it.
Fine Dining
The celebrity chef boom has made a big mark on Las Vegas and its mega-resorts, offering exquisite and rarefied dining experiences to all those willing to pay for some of the best food an international roster of culinary luminaries can muster.
Wolfgang Puck’s SPAGO at the Forum Shops in Caesar’s Palace started the Las Vegas restaurant renaissance, and continues to rank among the city’s best. Renowned French-by-way-of-New-York-City chefs Alain Ducasse and Daniel Boulud offer their respective sumptuous repasts at Mix in THEhotel and Daniel Boulud Brasserie at the Wynn Las Vegas. Joel Robuchon has two eateries in the MGM Grand, Bobby Flay has an offshoot of his New York new southwestern Mesa Grill at Caesar’s Palace, and Emeril Lagasse offers up seafood at the obviously named Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House as well as a spinoff of the restaurant that helped make him famous, Delmonico’s Steakhouse. These restaurants and many more in the Strip and just off-Strip hotels practically guarantee memorable meals with exquisite service for a handsome price. At all of these big name, high-ticket establishments, you are advised to make a reservation as soon as you know your travel dates, especially if you’ll be there during a major dining event or holiday (such as Valentine’s Day).
Buffets Galore
For many people, Las Vegas means buffets, and the choices of buffets are almost as staggering as the choices found in them. The gold standard of Las Vegas brunch buffets is the Sterling Brunch at Bally’s Hotel and Casino. Not cheap at $85 per person, the Sterling Brunch makes sure the price is worth it. They serve unlimited Perrier Jouet champagne, caviar, lobster, beef tenderloin, huge shrimp, exquisite sushi, exceptional renditions of brunch staples like eggs Benedict, and spectacular flaming bananas foster and crepes suzette for dessert. For a less luxe, but no less satisfying brunch buffet, most Strip hotels offer a champagne brunch in their buffets for about $15-$30 per person (buffets in Downtown hotels are even cheaper, most under $10). All other buffet meals are cheaper than Sunday brunch.
Ethnic and Eclectic
While Vegas palates are typically traditional, with steakhouses, seafood, American, French, and Italian restaurants making up the bulk of the eateries, more eclectic cuisines are making themselves known in the heart of the tourist mecca. While residents in other parts of the city have plenty of Indian, Ethiopian, Thai, Mexican, Middle Eastern and sundry other styles of restaurants to choose from, the area around the Strip has been only recently opened up to new sensations in Chinese (Jasmine in the Bellagio), Indian (Tamba in the Hawaiian Marketplace), Pan-Asian (Wazuzu at Encore), Middle Eastern (NM Café in Neiman-Marcus at the Fashion Show Mall), and Russian (Red Square at Mandalay Bay) cuisines.
Theme Restaurants
Spectacle matters in Las Vegas, and dining does not escape the theme mania that grips everything here. The offerings are familiar, though Vegas-sized and covered with neon and sparkles. You can feast your eyes along with your belly on at the Hard Rock and Planet Hollywood with their own memorabilia-laden hotel-casinos to Harley Davidson’s biker Americana to the Rainforest Café’s ersatz jungle.
The Best Burger in Town
Finally, while you can get just about anything under the sun to eat in Las Vegas, this most American of meccas wouldn’t be complete without the ultimate of American foods. Most sources seem to agree that the best burger in Las Vegas can be found at the Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay, a glorified diner where, starting at $6, you can dress up or dress down a patty of Angus or Wagyu (Kobe-style) beef however you like. Fries cost extra, but with the size and satisfaction of these burgers, you might not need them.