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Travel | Staycation

5 sure-bet restaurants you must try in Las Vegas

By Michele Parente
San Diego Union-Tribune
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I go to Las Vegas to gamble. And eat.

The goal is to come home with my wallet full and my tummy happy. While gambling can be a crap shoot, here are five restaurants that are sure bets.

Chef Guy Savoy (front left) at an event earlier this year at the Elysee Palace in Paris celebrating French cuisine, is considered one of the best chefs in the world.
(Michel Euler / Reuters Photo )

If you’re going to splurge at one Michelin-master’s place, this is it. It’s luxury French food from one of the most celebrated chefs on the planet. And long after you’ve recovered from the jolt over paying $75 for artichoke and black truffle soup — with toasted mushroom brioche and black truffle butter, no less — you’ll remember only the truffled bliss. At Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas. (702) 731-7286 or bit.ly/2hJ0uxl.

French chef and pony-tailed globetrotter Hubert Keller has collected his favorite recipes from around the world and celebrates them here in unpretentious, small-plates style. Ignore the obligatory Vegas shock and awe of the $5,000 burger (wagyu, beef, foie gras and truffles, served with a bottle of 1995 Chateau Pétrus), and focus on dishes that do the U.S., Mexico, Italy and France proud. At Mandalay Bay. 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas. (702) 632-7200 or bit.ly/2hBJtBN.

Overlooking the Las Vegas strip and the Bellagio fountains, Giada the restaurant is beautiful and badass — just like Giada De Laurentiis herself. The Cal-Ital menu embodies the core of these two cuisines: let excellent ingredients speak for themselves. (Speaking of speaking, the menu includes Italian pronunciations, like Spah-geh-tee. Which is Deh-lee-tsioso.) Look for her casual eatery Pronto by Giada to open at Caesars early next year. At The Cromwell, 3595 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas. (855) 442-3271 or bit.ly/2yTVMAo.

The most iconic dish at Spago, either in Las Vegas or Beverly Hills, is the salmon pizza. The arrival of Wolfgang Puck's Spago in Vegas in 1992 started a stampede of celebrity chefs coming to Sin City that continues today.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

Wolfgang Puck ushered in the era of celebrity chef restaurants in Las Vegas in 1992 and Spago’s smoked salmon pizza tastes just as relevant today. The clock is ticking on Spago’s days at Caesars with just a few weeks before it closes. Find it at the Bellagio in the summer. It takes over the prime space that housed Todd English’s Olives. 3500 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas (Caesars); 3600 Las Vegas Blvd. S. (Bellagio). (702) 369-6300 or wolfgangpuck.com/dining/spago-lv.

No $75 soups or $5,000 burgers here — Ellis Island’s 24-hour diner is where you go for $16.99 King Cut prime rib that comes with everything, $7.99 fried chicken and vanilla malted waffles, and the $10.99 Hangover Burger (bacon, cheddar, fried pickle, fried egg and Bloody Mary mayo on a brioche bun). Ask your server about the off-the-menu filet-cut top sirloin steak special as well as some off-the-record dish about the Vegas-crazy goings-on at the restaurant in its 40-plus years. At Ellis Island Hotel, Casino & Brewery. 4178 Koval Lane, Las Vegas.(702) 733-8901 or ellisislandcasino.com/dining.

Travel | Staycation
Michele Parente

Michele Parente is the Dining, Wine + Lifestyle reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her areas of expertise include the Valle de Guadalupe wine region, fashion, television, women’s issues and coverage of aging, such as the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia and family caregiving. Michele is the former Sunday and features editor, where she oversaw profiles, special projects, such as the Legacy of WWII and in-depth reports on a variety of topics. She joined the U-T in 2003, supervising coverage areas that have included features, fashion, TV, Food, Consumer Health and Arts & Entertainment. Previously, Michele was the assistant features editor at The Oregonian, in Portland, as well as the Portland City Hall reporter. She spent 10 years at New York Newsday as a reporter on the crime, education, state legislature and New York City Hall beats. She was part of a team that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting. A native New Yorker, Michele received her B.A. in political science and Italian Literature at UC Berkeley. In 1980, she studied at L’Università di Urbino, in Italy. One of her life’s goals is to make her way through each of the world’s great wine regions.

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