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Las Vegas is not only about gambling and having fun. Although you may be tempted to spend all your time in front of a slot machine, you've gotta keep that blood sugar up, you know. Las Vegas has a real dining scene; in fact, in some of the larger hotels, you can hang out for a week and never eat in the same place twice. But there's more to Las Vegas dining than what you find adjacent to a casino.
- Best celebrity chef restaurants: Actually, few celebrity chefs are in the kitchen in Vegas — they just have outposts of their name brand restaurants. If that matters to you — and if money is no object — then you have to eat at Joel Robuchon at the Mansion (in the MGM Grand), where the master chef continues his sterling reputation. (Truth be told, Robuchon won't be in the kitchen all the time either, but many of his employees from his famous establishments are in charge and execute their duty flawlessly.) Considerably less dear is Picasso (in the Bellagio) where Julian Serrano, late of San Francisco's Masa, actually holds court most nights. Otherwise, you can probably rely on the fact that someone is paying careful attention to Thomas Keller's Bouchon (in the Venetian) and Charlie Palmer's Aureole. If these chefs themselves aren't wielding the utensils, they've made darn sure someone reliable — and maybe even on their way to their own celebrity chef fame — is.
- Best noncelebrity chef restaurants: Rosemary's is run by two chefs who cut their teeth on noted restaurants in New Orleans before coming to Vegas to help open up Emeril's Seafood at the MGM Grand. Alize (in the Palms) is another venture from Andre (of Andre's in Downtown and the Monte Carlo, both also highly recommended). The chefs may not be household names, but they ought to be.
- Best new restaurant: The James Beard Foundation nominated Bartolotta (at Wynn Las Vegas) just that, for 2006, and since we had already sampled chef Paul Bartolotta's simple but sublime Italian seafood, patrons heartily agreed.
- Best budget meal: The submarine sandwiches at Capriotti's are so big, not to mention so delicious, that three people could probably feel well fed off one large sandwich — which costs around $9.
- Best buffet: The days of cheap Vegas buffets are over — if you want food that's more than just fuel, at least. If you don't mind spending a bit (but still probably less overall than you might at any moderately priced restaurant), spend it on the range of French regional-inspired dishes at Paris, Le Village Buffet (in the Paris hotel) or the less thematically oriented, but still terrific, Wynn Las Vegas Buffet. Otherwise, of the more moderately priced (but still not all that pricey) buffets, Main Street Station has the freshest and nicest one.
- Best red meat: You'll love the prime rib at Lawry's, but if you want other cuts of cow, split a monster 44-ouncer (unless you think you don't need to, you greedy goose) at Charlie Palmer Steak. The latter a little too pricey? Locals love what they do to meat at Austin's Steakhouse.
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