Does anyone even trust celebrity chef restaurants? To me, they seem a bit like influencers. Had trust, lost trust, and now no one trusts any of them. The only people who trust influencers now are other influencers. I don’t even think chefs would trust celebrity chef restaurants.
I’ve been stung more than once, I can admit. Seeing a glitzy name you recognise attached to a dining room is often an unmet promise that trades you financial ruin for an average three-course meal.
My dislike of celebrity restaurants (it’s common!) dates back to my first time in Las Vegas, wide-eyed and ready to melt right into the Entertainment Capital of the World.
The partying was bliss. The hotel pools were heaven on earth. The people watching? Unmatched. Especially on Fremont Street.
Yet the food left a sour taste (literally and figuratively) almost every time I was lured by a name. I mean, Guy Fieri has a cooking show. Surely his team can cook, right? Not right.
Starry celebrity kitchens aren’t always bad
I was in my late 20s, only starting to really get into food writing, and completely unreserved about ditching my friends as soon as they wanted to go back to Wicked Spoon for the fifth time. I walked right on up to Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar and walked out an hour later, fuming. Naive.
Being hungry doesn’t make me angry as it does for normal people (it makes me excited). But paying a small fortune for a meal no better than something I’d find at a domestic American airport milks the toxic masculinity right out of me.
Just a year prior, I was in Los Angeles, around the same time people kept making a big deal about Gordon Ramsay serving pub-style food in The Grove. Fat Cow it was called. It’s still one of the worst meals I’ve had to date.
Reflecting on that one-two punch made me give up on celebrity restaurants altogether. And Vegas is full of them. Instead of drawing me in, seeing a recognisable name would repel me. My most recent visit to this neon-washed Peter Pan oasis has changed that.
While you won’t catch me at a Nusr-Et Steakhouse anytime soon, I’ve softened my no-go stance on celebrity restaurants after a fantastic meal at Ramsay’s Kitchen in Harrah’s Las Vegas. Beautifully plump pan-seared scallops served with moreish bites of orange-glazed pork belly on a bed of apricot puree with a rich chicken jus, a big, tasty Caesar salad with shrimp and pancetta, and a gold-standard beef wellington with red wine demi-glace and potato puree.
It’s the kind of hit-after-hit meal that doesn’t pop up every day, even when part of your job is to eat nice food in nice cities.
No one would be naive enough to go to a celebrity restaurant thinking the actual celebrity will be cooking for you, but the meal was so precise and impressive that if you told me Ramsay himself was in the kitchen that day, I’d believe it.
From high-profile to hidden gem
I’ve had good meals in Las Vegas before, but nothing I’d rave about. Certainly nothing that’d overshadow food cities like Portland (Maine), San Francisco and New Orleans. And yet just the day after Ramsay’s Kitchen, I scored a reservation at Esther’s Kitchen & Bar in the criminally overlooked Arts District. That was just under two years ago, and I’m still talking about that meal.
When you hear that Esthers is the hardest reservation to score in Las Vegas, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a big, shouty atmosphere, expensive meals and militant service. Maybe you’ll get some perfectly composed Instagram-ready wait staff, overcrowding your table with an eagerness that veers on annoyance, or a cocktail that’s worth $5,000 and has to be ordered in advance.
Nope. None of that.
Esther’s Kitchen doesn’t look all that different from any other trendy restaurant you’d find in a big city’s arts district. Wood, wrought iron, open kitchen, interesting lighting and loud chatter. It’s a local haunt, and the food, primarily Italian, is easily the best in Las Vegas.
“We’ve had a lot of transplants. It’s always been transplants. Now we’re trying to champion homegrown concepts and local chefs,” a bemused Vegas local told me that week while I was on one of the new runs for Lip Smacking Foodie Tours. And it makes sense; it’s what any smart city is doing with its culinary scene – that is, taking a hyperlocal, deeply committed approach that values peak growing seasons, nuanced techniques and a sense of place.
There’s plenty you should order at Esther’s, but pride of place goes to the bread and butter. The kitchen has a really neat concept here, where they give you a giant slab of exceptionally well-made sourdough bread and list a whole heap of condiments, dips and spreads so you can mix-and-match. Bread is what made Esther’s famous in Vegas, so it’s an essential prelude to those moreish handmade pastas.
Where possible, everything at Esther’s is made from scratch and in-house. Chef James Trees is of the Culinary Institute of America ilk, so anything less than a hyper-local approach would have resulted in a much different restaurant kitchen.
A hotel for gourmands
It’s Vegas, so you know almost everything you’re going to want to do is stuffed into big, money-making resorts. And while it goes against instinct, you’ll actually find some satisfying restaurants and bars framing gaming floors (like at the Palazzo), or curated into upscale food halls (like at the Cosmopolitan).
But again, they are hard to find. My best recommendation would be to engage the aforementioned Lip Smacking Foodie Tours. I’ve taken two of their tours over the past few years, and both have given me more insight into what’s actually worth eating in Las Vegas than any Reddit thread, guidebook, or disinterested local’s suggestion could.
But if you want the most reliable self-contained food scene in the city, check into the Fontainebleau. The ambitious, high-gloss sister property to Miami’s signature luxury hotel only opened in 2023 and has already had a profound impact on how Las Vegas looks and functions up their side of the Strip. Albeit, it’s the quieter side of the Strip.
There are no fewer than 36 bars and restaurants scattered across the building, which wisely pushes the gaming floor to the back of the building so your guests don’t walk right into a scene of skitzy jackpot alerts and cynical pop culture-themed slot machines.
They aren’t created equal, but Don Prime, one of two steakhouses in the resort, is excellent. While Papi Steak is louder and more heavily pitched towards the “influencer” set, Don Prime successfully grabs the most luxurious design language from the swinging ’70s and shapes a very handsome dining room where rich and indulgent sides are as mandatory as those enormous dry-aged steaks.
Elsewhere in the resort, you’ll find a gorgeous French brunch at La Fontaine and worthy drinks at the gilded Bleau Bar, which sits in the centre of the gaming floor. Although nearby cocktail lounge Colins brings a much nicer, more intimate atmosphere (the cocktails, from memory, aren’t very nice).
You’ll get some exceptional dumplings and Cantonese fare at Washing Potato, while guests should also make do with room service. There’s no way a hotel that took almost 20 years and $3.7 billion to build would risk having average room service. In fact, very little in the resort is average. The spa is one of the best and most dizzingly modern I’ve been to (ever), the fitness centre is top-shelf, and service is refreshingly personal and warm (which, for a resort this size, is very impressive).
New, Classic & Notable
It’s no secret that Vegas (and the US) have posted a drop in tourism for 2025. Tourism is down around 7.5%, which means that instead of the previous year’s 41.7 million tourists, the famed neon city only managed to lure 38.5 million recorded visitors last year.
It’s a staggering drop, but the numbers say nothing about the quality of the offering or experience in Vegas. I mean, New Orleans only got just over 19 million visitors in 2024, and that’s one of the world’s greatest cities.
Vegas has made tremendous changes over the past few years, the most prolific being The Sphere. Maybe it’s time for the city to exhale just a little bit.
Perhaps this is a transition period as Vegas takes stock of all the big changes the city has seen over the past few years and switches up its rhythm. It’s always moved like a cool, confident city, but it’s rarely been sophisticated, or even charming. That has slowly been changing over the years, with better spas, better restaurants, better restaurants – even the legendary Vegas residency is no longer just reserved for end-stage pop divas.
But this piece is about food, so I want to highlight a few new developments, as well as some classics that bring a much more local focus to eating out in Las Vegas.
1. Sparrow + Wolf
Where the locals go for live fire cooking – think octopus with an intense char and wild boar lasagne, Sparrow and Wolf opened in Chinatown in 2017. Helmed by Chef Brian Howard (a James Beard award semi-finalist in 2024), the menu is curated to be simple with eclectic flair, modern American favourites, and shared family style. High-quality meat, locally sourced produce and housemade breads are staples, with a changing menu with the seasons.
2. Carson Kitchen
Offering creative American cuisine and comfort food in Downtown Las Vegas since its opening in 2014. Carson Kitchen is the last restaurant opened by legendary Las Vegas chef Kerry Simon, before he passed in 2015. A bright and breezy atmosphere, the reimagined comfort food includes crispy chicken skins with smoked honey, savoury Devil’s eggs with crispy pancetta and caviar. It’s opening really elevated Downtown’s dining scene. Thanks to its popularity, it now has another location in Salt Lake City.
3. Lotus of Siam
An oldie but a goodie, Lotus of Siam opened in 1999, and over the years has become a staple amongst locals and visitors alike (Anthony Bourdain was a fan). With a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2011, it’s now expanded into multiple locations. The restaurant’s new home on Flamingo Road still has the restaurant’s celebrated recipes – serving Northern Thai cuisine, with a menu of Thai-style stews, curries, paired with an exceptional wine menu.
