Hart, culinary critic, Jewish community leader, dies

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2002 | 8:34 a.m.

Las Vegas chefs would invite local socialite Sylvia Hart to their restaurants to impress her with their finest dishes.

But if she didn't believe that those dishes lived up to the hype, the widow of prominent Las Vegas culinary figure Nat Hart would not pull any punches.

"She would let the chef know her true feelings -- and it did not matter who it was," said longtime Las Vegas gaming executive Steven Hart, her son. "There was no gray area with her. She spoke her mind."

Sylvia Roslyn Hart, a philanthropist and Jewish community leader who played a leading role in founding the Temple Beth Sholom Sisterhood and the local Hadassah, died Wednesday of complications from surgery at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. She was 84.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 53 years were Sunday.

Born Sylvia Moses on Oct. 21, 1917, in Spring Valley, N.Y., she was the sixth of seven children -- and the last surviving child -- of Samuel Moses, a hotelier and tailor, and the former Rose Shoestock.

Sylvia met young chef Nat Hart in the late 1930s. They married in 1940 and were married 55 years until his death in 1995. He was longtime vice president of food and beverage for Caesars World Inc., and had opened many of the company's restaurants at Caesars Palace locally and in Atlantic City.

Although Nat had been trained by the world's top chefs, including Oscar of the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and had studied at the Cordon Bleu, it was Sylvia who pushed him up the corporate ladder. The couple co-owned a restaurant in Florida before they came to Las Vegas in 1949.

"Behind every great man is a great woman, and for Nat Hart, it was Sylvia," Steven Hart said. "She was the glue that held our family together and she inspired Dad to reach his full potential."

That included a role in helping Nat start the Nat Hart Gourmet Cooking School in Las Vegas that instructed more than 3,000 culinary students.

After her husband died, Sylvia Hart continued much of the philanthropic work he started, including support of the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, N.Y., and the University of Houston Conrad Hilton Hotel School. She also oversaw the Nat Hart Memorial Scholarship Fund at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Harts also were longtime supporters of the Meadows School.

In addition to her co-founding Temple Beth Sholom Sisterhood, of which she was a past president, and Hadassah, of which she was a life member, Hart was a member of the Variety Club and a supporter of the Chaine Rotisseriers, of which Nat Hart was a founder.

In addition to her son, Sylvia Hart is survived by a daughter, Ronnie Abrams of Henderson; and two grandchildren.

Burial was in Palm Valley View Memorial Park, 7600 S. Eastern Ave.

The family says donations can be made in Sylvia Hart's memory to the Nat Hart Memorial Scholarship Fund, UNLV, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154.