I want to preface this article with a few notes:
- My apologies for the photos — they were taken with my phone as I didn’t take my big girl camera with me and unfortunately these are not as clear as they could have been. The photos of the left overs are taken at home and they turned out a little better.
- I am gracious for the opportunities to dine at some of the finest restaurants in the nation.With that said, I have dined at some of the finest restaurants in the nation so my expectations tend to be higher than most. (Either that our I am just really hard to please – who knows… ask Bob.)
- I hate that I am using one of my favorite celebrity chef’s establishments as my example but it this dining experience that really made me reflect on past experiences. This article is written to discuss a trend that I feel that Bob and I have seen over the past few years with celebrity chef owned dining establishments. While picking apart my dining experience, at the end there is discussion of a trend.
Celebrity Chefs
For the past month I have been doing the happy dance. You know the one that football players do in the end zone after scoring the winning touchdown! In my head I am doing the Cabbage Patch – mentally screaming “boo-yeah!” – while feeling giddy knowing that Bob and I would be dining at one of our favorite celebrity chef’s restaurants, Gordon Ramsay Steak.
Like him or not you can’t deny that the man is a mad food genius in the kitchen. (Oh… should I share that I have a “thing” for all things Scottish so that elevates him a little more for me?! BOO-YEAH!)
When we arrived at Gordon Ramsay Steak, we started in the bar with drinks and the group ordered three appetizers:
- Smoked Beef Tartare – lemon zest, red onion, capers, white anchovy aïoli, cured egg yolks, yukon gold herb chips: The chips that were served with the tartare were really good unfortunately we lost half of them to the floor because the stand they were served on toppled as we were passing it around the table.
- Gnocchi – blistered heirloom cherry tomatoes, royal trumpet mushrooms, ibérico jamón, mushroom cream: The gnocchi {minus the jambon} itself was perfect. Light, fluffy, and easy to eat. I say easy to eat as I hate to take a bite of gnocchi only to feel that I am going to be chewing rubber for days. The gnocchi was superb {can you tell I liked it}. My only complaint was the blistered heirloom cherry tomatoes, royal trumpet mushrooms, and mushroom cream sauce was missed. I took the only tomato, didn’t see any mushrooms and in the dark I must have missed the sauce even thought I swiped mine around the plate as I tasted nothing. Maybe Bob coated all of his first without me noticing?! {Click here to read my article on how to make potato gnocchi.}
- Hamachi Crudo – uni, smoked salmon roe, pickled radish, black garlic purée: This was placed on our end and Bob tasted the black garlic purée and replied with a WOW… then another WOW…! Bob kept trying to get me to taste the puree but I am scared to taste anything on a plate with seafood.
Two of our friends have dined at Gordon’s other locations, one in New York and the other in London. They were raving about the food and started sharing their food experience with us. Enough already… let’s get this dinner party started!
Once our reservation time arrived we went upstairs to the dining area where once again the giddy girl came out as Antoine was describing our dining experience for the night. How they would bring the meats to the table to show us beforehand, how the signature dish of Chef Gordon (Beef Wellington) would be 45 minutes to prepare, and more.
With Bob being a vegetarian (and no he doesn’t eat seafood – he’s a vegetarian!) and me allergic to seafood it can sometimes be challenging have a lot of choices. Tasting menus always are of interest to our table but they never happen because the menus are always incredibly expensive for dishes that we wouldn’t eat. Sorry table of friends… no tasting menu with this couple. This is a common occurrence at all the restaurants which have tasting menus and just not Gordon’s restaurant.
Unfortunately for Bob and me the appetizers, soups, and salads were for those diners who enjoy seafood. There were other meat dishes that I could have had but I am not a fan of pork or chicken in most restaurants. Regardless of my meat eating weirdness, the bottom line is this is the first restaurant of memory that didn’t have options for Bob. Now on to the main meal and Bob is left out again and ended up order a plate of side dishes. Well, isn’t that exciting?! We get to pay a lot of money for side dishes… yum. (Kudos Steve Wynn… kudos!).
Now… here is where kudos to Steve really matter… with all the talk of Bob being a vegetarian they still brought out his Market Green Salad with the crisp pancetta!
The merry go round of meats was presented to the table and three of us decided to go for the Wagyu American Filet (8 ounces) prepared to medium / medium rare. My mind is already anticipating the marbled meat that is so tender I won’t need a knife to slice it.
Boy was I wrong!
My 8 ounce steak was not as tall and not as round as the two other steaks prepared the same as mine. The other steaks were probably half as tall and it made me wonder if I got the “small” one because I was the only girl at the table?! My poor little piece of meat looked like the scrawny end piece that was picked last for kick ball. I cut all the scraggly pieces off before I started to dig into my steak which was dry… and had no taste. I JUST ORDERED A $79 PIECE OF ____.
Look at those steaks up there. Do you see how nice and tall the one on top and bottom right corner is?! Gordon… where is your awesome quality control that we see on Hell’s Kitchen? Not at Gordon Ramsay Steak… or at least not our night at our table at my plate. {SIGH}
Robert ordered the beef wellington and refused to share (he never does) but he finished it off so it must have been good. Our other friend ordered the bone in rib-eye which he devoured in minutes (we never see this man eat more than a salad). The other two filets looked amazing and our friends said they were great.
When ordering the sides we were coordinating so we could all try a little of it all and the table ordered:
Asparagus – pistachio pesto, confit tomato:I didn’t try the asparagus so I can’t speak for how it was prepared or tasted. I am not a fan of large asparagus spears and most restaurants serve spears larger than my fingers so it’s a dish that I normally don’t order. There was a lot left over so not sure what to make of that.
Bourbon Creamed Corn – charred corn, red onion marmalade: Note: this dish had to be reordered because it was missed the first time. Let me start this paragraph with Bob knows how to roast, grill, and char corn. Until now I didn’t really appreciate how he nails it every time, which he will use in his truffle creamed corn or his roasted corn guacamole. The corn was really tough and the itself without flavor (think field corn). Surprisingly, it was very tasty the next day. I could actually taste the bourbon in it and the flavors that I was expecting last night… were on my spoon.
Brussel Sprouts – crispy brussels, lardons, apple cider vinaigrette: Even though they knew Bob was a vegetarian after discussing it multiple time they still brought out his food with lardon. I look over and ask Bob
Fingerling Potatoes – parmesan, truffle: These were probably my favorite dish but unfortunately they were part of Bob’s plate of side dishes and not for the table.
Truffle French Fries: Should I admit that this was probably one of my more favorite items served? I love anything with truffles and these fries were yummy to snack on while waiting for my potatoes and corn.
Mac & Cheese – blue, cheddar, parmesan, truffle: <— THAT is the description on the menu and nowhere does it state there are peas in it. Small thing but for someone who HATES peas… that was a gross bite when I didn’t look it what I was eating. Despite that, the flavors were amazing while others didn’t like it. Oh… you don’t like anything prepared with truffle? Scoot your servings over to MY plate.
Potato Puree – yukon gold potato, crème fraîche: Note: this dish had to be reordered because it was missed the first time. Once it arrived I had a hard time getting it onto my plate since I didn’t have a spoon and it was so thin it would fall through my fork tines. No real flavor but I did eat them all since I am one of those who has a piece of steak with potatoes in almost every bite.
Sautéed Mushrooms – garlic chips, scallions, bonito: Ummm…. I hope they prepared Bob’s without the bonito. I tasted them without realizing what they were prepared with and I think I could taste it. We will wait and see if the allergy to seafood kicks in or not. {I guess all the talk of asking for suggestions since Bob is a vegetarian and I am ALLERGIC to seafood fell on deaf ears.}
Spinach – sautéed or gratinéed with parmesan cream: I didn’t eat the spinach so I can’t vouch for whether it was tasty or not.
The saving grace of the night? The desserts! We ordered:
- Mixed sorbets – oh my the passion fruit – guava was amazing!
- Coconut Cake – coconut pastry cream, pineapple, toasted coquitos, passion fruit-guava sorbet: Looked great and didn’t last long on the plate. I guess the proof was in that cake mix!
- Apple Tart Tatin – golden puff pastry, caramelized apples, frangipane filling, cinnamon ice cream: I wasn’t sure about the cinnamon ice cream because I am a chocolate or vanilla kind of girl. WOWSER… I will be trying to replicate this dish at home.
- Sticky Toffee Pudding – sweet pudding cake, brown sugar toffee, brown butter ice cream: Check out the photo above – do you see how they served the ice cream. So cute. So delicious.
Now, why am I picking apart my dinner like my big girl panties are in a wad? Because I feel that for the most part, this is typical for celebrity chef restaurants. If you dine at their “flagship” restaurant we have found that the service, food, and overall dining experience is near perfect. Stray away to one found in a tourist city and the quality of everything declines.
Another example would be Emeril Lagasse’s restaurants. Emeril and NOLA in New Orelans… I could eat there every night and never complain. Perfection. Eat at Emeril’s in Orlando and half of our dinner party has food poisoning from a dining experience that was just average (but a bill that was not.)
Delminico… THAT was a fun night! Ordered the filet medium, it came out RARE.. asked to be refired and it came back still looking rare… send it back again… why yes, blackened well done steak is EXACTLY what I wanted to pay for. When we brought it to the manager’s attention that my birthday dinner wasn’t what we were hoping for he apologized by comping us a piece of some cake made with coffee. Thanks. I don’t like coffee.
I could mention a few more examples but it seems to be to be a pattern. Flagship restaurant is stellar while the ones located in the “tourist” areas not so much. That is our experience. Either that or we are just unlucky diners.
So my question is… when other diners enjoy the food at these establishments are they raving about the dishes because they are glamoured {vampire speak} by dining at a celebrity chef restaurant, their palates don’t know better? And if there are diners eating there that do have a heightened sense of taste and / or enjoy fine dining are they in heaven because they haven’t tried other restaurants of the celebrity chefs?
On closing, I would like to point out that I still feel that the some of best restaurants in Las Vegas are located at the Wynn. Bartolotta, Sinatra, and SW Steakhouse will continue to be our “go to” restaurants when friends come into town and want a “Vegas dining experience.” These not only have a diverse menu to cover almost any type of dietary restrictions, the service and quality of food is impeccable.
What have you seen when you dine at celebrity chef restaurants from city to city? Same experience or more than satisfied?
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