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Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.
CityCenter Dining Experience
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CityCenter offers excellent dining experiences.
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Sun Coverage
The list of chefs behind CityCenter’s restaurants reads like a celebrity who’s who in the culinary world — Wolfgang Puck, Todd English, Michael Mina, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Julian Serrano, Martin Heierling.
They are part of MGM Mirage’s effort to create food offerings at CityCenter that are as unique as the rest of the new casino-resort.
“Generally what we were looking for was to take the partnerships that we have and work off of them, making them more high-energy, cooler and hipper,” MGM Mirage Food and Beverage Vice President Bart Mahoney said.
With the completion of Aria, the complex will house more than 20 restaurants, with more to follow, bringing out some of the country’s top culinary masters.
Besides some of the more familiar names in Las Vegas dining, CityCenter will bring some first-to-Vegas chefs to the mix, such as Shawn McClain who will be opening his fourth restaurant, Sage, located just off the Aria Resort & Casino lobby.
“I was fortunate enough and humbled to be invited to come out here. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” McClain said. “The talent of all the chefs out here is a real inspiration to me and to be among them now is awesome.”
Sage will feature a “new American” menu, as McClain describes it, with a bit of a Mediterranean flair. The interior of Sage is dramatic, decorated in dark purple hues and dim lighting, accented with hanging chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling murals.
“We want it to be it to be exciting and lively but, at the same time, really comfortable,” McClain said.
Three-star Michelin chef Masayoshi Takayama is another chef making his Vegas debut.
Takayama brings two restaurants to Aria — Bar Masa for modern Japanese dining and Shaboo, which features a style of Japanese hot-pot cooking called shabu with a $500 per person fixed-price menu.
Adding some restaurateurs to CityCenter were no-brainers, Mahoney said, like Michael Mina, who is opening his fifth restaurant at an MGM Mirage resort.
The name of Mina’s latest creation, American Fish, pretty much says it all. Mina said the restaurant will showcase seafood from the nation’s great lakes, rivers and oceans.
“Also, the techniques we’re using pay some homage to things that are indigenous to how things are cooked in certain regions, like maybe how mussels are cooked in Washington,” Mina said.
The smells from the wood-burning oven, one of the five techniques Mina is using to prepare his food, fills American Fish, complementing the restaurant’s earthy décor.
“The idea was to have a concept where there is great harmony in all of it, the design, the food and the techniques,” Mina said.
Mina has carried over CityCenter’s mission of sustainability into his cooking. The chef said American Fish follows a set of standards mapped out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which supports environmentally friendly fishing and farming and discourages over-fishing.
Just next door to American Fish, Jean-Georges Vongerichten will be opening Jean Georges Steakhouse, the chef’s second steakhouse with MGM Mirage.
Vongerichten, who is responsible for the regal and pricey Prime Steakhouse at the Bellagio, said his namesake restaurant takes on a more comfortable, hipper vibe.
“The feel of the restaurant is very minimalistic, very industrial. Prime is very classical, timeless...This one is more modern, more casual and darker,” Vongerichten said. “We really want the plate to be the star.”
Guests can find 10 different cuts of meat at Jean Georges, from filet minon to porterhouse steaks to lamb chops, all fired over a wood-burning grill.
Prime opened more than 10 years ago at the Bellagio, but in Jean Georges Steakhouse, Vongerichten said, he believes he’s created a restaurant for the 2000s.
“You have to create cravings both in the décor and on the plate,” he said. “People are always going to come the first time, but you have to give them something to crave to keep them coming back.”
What is cooler and hipper paying $85 dollars for a $6 steak you can buy
at a store?
How about City Center aims for more dumb rubes
And,how much do these 'celebrity chefs' really have to do with the place? How often are they realy there? How much of the food is done by regular folks ?
"Cooler and Hipper" and no doubt more expensive. But hey, all the wannabe's will fork it over so they can play pretend
So who's gonna pay $500.00 PP for a prixfixe menu at a Japanese restaurant? I suppose Japanese tourists will, seeing how the Yen is worth so much against the US dollar right now. But c'mon, those days ended in 2007 for most folks.
Good luck to these guys, they'll likely need it!
Well,I learned something new today . Never heard of Prix Fixe before.....
The high-end establishments are fighting over what few high-rollers remaining. Exeryone else who were patronized these places either have lost home equity or do not have jobs. The business model for the high-diner is no longer valid. There will always be high-end restaurants on the strip but there are too many now. As for the restaurant workers, I can see that they would be tense trying to make a living off of the few remaining diners. I feel for them.
Call me a simpleton,but I'de rather go to In-N-Out Burger.
oh boy, small portions, fancy presentations, big $'s, yeah that's the solution. how those rich and lazy crowd doin for ya vegas. they have hoodwinked ya comrades. they pop the champagne every nite we argue about gays, abortion, religion. wake up
wonder whether they have a dollar menu? oh, I think there is a market for their product - donations to three square from the unused food and food for beggars outside their door!
"Takayama brings two restaurants to Aria -- Bar Masa for modern Japanese dining and Shaboo, which features a style of Japanese hot-pot cooking called shabu with a $500 per person fixed-price menu."
WTF!!!! $1000.00 for dinner in a Japanese restaurant? I suggest you go to the Little Dumpling on Craig Rd/Simmons where they serve a nice variety of Asian food including maine lobster on the buffet (weekends) for $10.99pp.
Anyone who wants to see what will happen here, just take a look at Century City in Los Angeles...
United 727: you ARE a simpleton. And I mean disrespect to simpletons when I say that.
$1,0000 for dinner for 2. I have heard it all,now.
Fine dining is okay in these high end hotels....but I think they still need a food court as an option. Most people don't want to spend big bucks for breakfast and/or lunch.
As an example, the Venetian has great fine dining and a food court, while Bellagio only has fine dining. This issue was always a factor in determining where I would stay before I moved here.
What is cooler and hipper paying $85 dollars for a $6 steak you can buy
at a store?
Or $50 for a plate of pasta which you can make at home for $2.50 AND you don't have to beg for some grated Parmesan.
Omg! This just gets funnier by the minute! Cooler and hipper to whom?! All of the cool/hip restaurants had to start advertising el cheapo prix fixe menus just to try and get people in the door.
What I want to know is who is defining what is cool and hip? The whole town can't be turned into one giant PURE nightclub! Hahahaha!
"Hey Chaz..."
"Yeah Ryan?"
"I was thinking about trying out one of the new restaurants at CityCenter."
"Is that the place where they sell margaritas by the yard?"
"No but they have Jean Georges."
"Does he make margaritas by the yard?"
"I don't think so..."
"Can we get in with flip flops?"
"Doubt it..."
"Hmmm. There's a McDonalds at Harrahs and they margaritas by the yard right next door.
"Oh ok!"
Hahahahahahaha! Must be nice to hold thousands of jobs in your hands and be completely out of touch with reality! Pretty soon Jimmy Murren will be walking around in his office with Cleanex boxes on his feet!
Oh and seriously in response to Noindex. The Venetian has Thomas Keller's Bouchon, which isn't too far a cry from the famed French Laundry in Napa (probably the most famous restaurant in the world). The food there is superb but not outrageous. BUT the food court on the casino floor has the best damn cheeseburgers, fresh cut fries, and cheesesteaks in the whole town! Even ol' Shelly A. realized that all kinds of people come to Vegas and even the well-to-do don't eat "five-star" meals 24/7.
It must be nice to waste BIG money like that on one meal. I hope the wales keep on comeing to LV so us gold fish can just pull are coolers up to are rooms
it is just so sad that alot of these people,s mores dictate their vacation,just so they can go home behind closed doors and SCREAM at the top of their lungs "why did i just allow myself to get peerpunched,and now my family has to save up for another year,so we can do it all again next year.
sheldons cheesesteaks are the bomb!
" cooler and hipper experience should read poser and wannabe "
And again I posted this before,and apologize for bringing it up again,but who wears ed hardy,luis vuitton handbag,driving a H3,and then shops at walmart.Ive worked in 13 different cities and the fraudulent posers that live here just blow my mind.I imagine since they cant live off there 2nd-6th equity loan anymore,maybe thats why they are shopping at walmart
kinda sucks for you people that borrowed 125% of your home value in early 2007,only to see your house now undervalued about 35-40%.oh well you still have your H3.my girlfriend just looked over my shoulder,and explained to me that,all these people will do now is walk away from their mortgage,rent for 2 years,and wait for their credit score to rebound,and repeat process in 2012
Fing morons
peace out
Just think, after dinner you can walk the meal off, cruizing the shops picking up $20,000 or so in 'trinkets' to bring home God I'm glad this will save Las Vegas
Oh wait I forgot about the 2500 construction workers layed off now thats its done, Probably wont be saving them
translation: pompous and gouge-ier.
I'll bet the $500 dining experience is one you'd never forget. I can't afford it, but I'd like to be able to. I hope that price includes the saki, then who cares waht it costs.
This place is just ONE BIG LAUGHABLE JOKE!!!!
i'm not a liberal, but for real...if you have $200 to spend on dinner, how about spending $40 and invite some friends that are out of work to dine with you.
way more fun and you're helping out a friend.
"Takayama brings two restaurants to Aria -- Bar Masa for modern Japanese dining and Shaboo, which features a style of Japanese hot-pot cooking called shabu with a $500 per person fixed-price menu."
And you can't even light up a cigarette afterwards to have with your after dinner drink!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!!)
artswanson :
ALRIGHT ! my kinda guy! speaks his mind with a BS attitude and experience! go brother! Send some of that eye candy my way!!
If I'm going to go party all night long, the only food I care to ingest beforehand is a few raw vegetables and a splash of soymilk. Eat too much before an all-nighter and you risk seeing it a second time.
As far as I am concerned the whole concept of City Center is a turn off for me, and the majority of my friends that visit Vegas. I think MGMMirage is really out of touch with what visitors would like to experience when they are in town.
ya, you're such a rockstar that you have nothing better to do than make anonymous comments on a newspaper website. and ya...i thing you just proved my point about the kind of jerkwads that need to show off how much money they have.
how about you post your last tax return on flikr.com and post a link to it?
that's right, you're a fake.
just another example of an ill conceived idea executed at exactly the worst possible moment in the last 70 years. These 500 a plate meals are all chasing fewer and fewer customers, good luck with all this overpriced fluff in this market. A mall that almost no one will shop at, restaurants that few will dine, and rooms that are discounted from the get-go and still not sold, and lets not forget the overpriced condos(even after the 30% reduction they are 40% overpriced still), and the often forgotten shell of the property-the Harmon Hotel--not yet finished. This is a market you open up a meat and potatoes kind of place and be happy to squeak by. All this wouldn't be so bad if you were opening in a new market you needed to get into--but in a place where you have 9 casinos already--you are just killing the other properties that you already own.
People with real money don't dine in fancy restaurants all the time.
People who were eating in those places were guys trying to impress people. When you have money....you can eat anywhere & be impressive.
City Center looks like it was designed by typical popular culture raised budweiser trash who wanted to design "somethin fancy!"
Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, & Prada were fashionable names, but now it is just overpriced commodity items bought by undereducated escorts,strippers & their admirers.
Plus....WHO names a high end shopping mall "Crystals"!!!
Why not just name it "Roseannes" or "Bob's Emporium"
Is it also a low end beauty parlor !!!!
These places look like office buildings. Aria looks like a crappy casino full of smoke.
Maybe those 'high rollers' like Swanson would appreciate a working ventilation system.
I have to give Wynn some credit. Bellagio is still the best looking property in Las Vegas.
Wynn Hotel would be my 2nd choice.
City Center looks boring. That is a bad place to start from.