411: All in on Las Vegas Food with Wolfgang Puck

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0:31When we started, there were maybe 700 ,000 or 800 ,000 people in Las Vegas. Now there are 2 ,500 ,000. I think now it's really the entertainment city of the world. And, you know, food is entertainment too. So people have to go to eat, to drink, and then see a show of vice versa. This is Taste, all in on Las Vegas food, presented by Las Vegas. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. Influential and esoteric celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck has been operating restaurants in Las Vegas for over 25 years, earning a following through his creative cuisine and sense of showmanship at restaurants including Karama, Cut, and Spago.

1:13On this entertaining episode, we hear how Wolfgang was initially drawn to Las Vegas when opening in 1992, and how he's seen the Las Vegas dining scene develop into an internationally acclaimed destination. Also on the show, Eliza and I take a tour of Las Vegas' bustling Chinatown, making visits to some really, really cool places including Ping Pang Pong, Gabi Coffee and Bakery, Shang Artisan Noodles, and the 24-Hour Cocktail Bar at Golden Tiki. We also experienced Cantonese barbecue nirvana at Winky Hong Kong Barbecue and Noodle and catch up with the restaurant's owner, Ida Shek. I hope you enjoy this very special Las Vegas episode of the show.

1:59Man, this is a long time coming. I'm excited to talk to you. How are you doing? I'm fantastic. I'm happy to talk to you. And I know you have a beautiful office, looks like it. And I'm excited to talk to taste because life is all about taste, you know. You know what? I'm going to use that tagline. I really appreciate it. Life is also about Las Vegas, visiting Las Vegas. And this whole week, we're doing episodes devoted to Las Vegas as a city. And, you know, Wolfgang, you've had restaurants there for a while. I believe since 1992 when you opened Fago Las Vegas at the form shops at Caesars Palace.

2:38Now you're at the Bellagio. What was Las Vegas like in 1992 when you got there? It was, you know, crazy. I love boxing. So that's one of the reasons I said I'm going to open a restaurant there. And when they built the form and I told Sheldon Gordon, I said, you know, he wanted me to put the Spargo there. I said, okay, if you pay for it, I'll do it. And he said, yes, no problem. So then I had to do it. And I think it was always exciting for me because of the fights and everything. At that time, there were great fights with Sugar Ray and Hagler and Ernst and all these guys were fighting behind Caesar's Palace.

3:17Caesar's at that time was the best hotel there. So when we opened Spargo in 92, in December, end of November, it was crazy because I didn't know what to expect. So all the shows were closed. There was nothing open, nothing going on in Las Vegas. And I remember we opened Spargo. We got a great article in the Review Journal in Las Vegas. My mother couldn't have written it better. And we ended up doing like 60 dinners that night. And we had like nine waiters stage and I don't know how many people in the kitchen and everything. And I said, oh my God, this is crazy. Las Vegas is crazy. I tried to call my friend Siegfried and Roy.

3:59You know, they are Germans and Siegfried comes close to Austria from Rosenheim. And so I said, you know, maybe they're going to come or do something. And they said, no, no. So the show is closed and they're coming back for Christmas. So I said, okay. But there were three weeks. It was crazy. No customers. I had to drink a bottle of red wine to fall asleep every night. We rented an apartment a little next to Sparrow. And so then came Christmas, New Year's, and the business started to come. New Year's is special. And then came a CES, Consumer Electronics Show. And it was busy. then it started really to get really busy.

4:48CES was the catalyst. We're in 2024. It's remarkable to hear about Vegas without shows and a Vegas, but now it seems it's obvious that Las Vegas is a city for food. There's so many interesting restaurants. I like to get a sense of yourself when you visit. I'd love to get, where are you going in Vegas right now to go out? You know, when I'm in Vegas, I stay short times, generally two or three days. And since we have five properties there, so if I hit each one, I have no time to go somewhere. And you know what? I know restaurants and you know what? I feel guilty if I'm not in my restaurant when I'm there.

5:29The same thing I do when I go to London. You know, we have got in London. And I rarely go out in London because we have the restaurant there. So if I would live there, you know, it would be different. And so I remember even in the old time, I never went to the restaurants. You know, in 92, you didn't really have any chef at the restaurant there. We were the first one there with Spargo. And then a little later, Chinua. And then in 93, I told the CEO of the MGM, they just opened. I said, instead of having a Mexican restaurant, let's bring Mark Miller and let's bring Emeril. And so all of a sudden, the MGM had some named chefs in the restaurant.

6:11And then the rest is history. You know, little by little, Steve Wynn and everybody, they just copied that. And every chef now from near and far has a restaurant in Las Vegas. And that's exciting. I'd like to get a sense just in terms of the talent that is in Las Vegas now. Like, what's been the big change since when you launched in 92? because you really are one of the establishing celebrity chefs to operate in Las Vegas. But now you walk down the strip and you've got Martha Stewart, Giada De Laurentiis. You've got Mark Vetri, all these guys. What do you think the big change is? So when we opened Spargo, then we opened a Wolfgang Park Bar and Grill over at the MGM.

6:52And then I had Emeril come and Mark Miller come. And then all of a sudden, we were a couple of chefs already there. And then when Steve Wynn, 25 years ago or so, opened the Bellaccio, then he brought in some chefs. And then the Venetian, obviously, we opened a restaurant there, not two restaurants there. So then a lot of other restaurants, they brought in three-star chefs. I remember even the Rio brought in Jean-Louis Parada at that time, you know, a famous restaurant in D.C. So there were quite a lot of chefs. But the city was so different then. You know, when we started, there were maybe 700 ,000 or 800 ,000 people in Las Vegas.

7:35Now there are 2.5 million. So it's totally different. Now you have all these arenas and all these sports things going on, the football, the hockey, and baseball is coming, I'm sure, many other things. They built this amazing sphere now to have shows there. So I think now it's really the entertainment city of the world. And, you know, food is entertainment, too. So people have to go to eat, to drink, and then see a show of vice versa. How have the diners changed over the years? Because now it's obvious that folks are coming to Las Vegas for the food. World's 50 Best is in Vegas this month, and that's a big part of it.

8:15So tell me, how have the diners changed? Because, you know, you think of Las Vegas back in the 70s and 80s. you know, it's a meat and potatoes town. It's a gambling town. But obviously Wolfgang Park is not just doing meat and potatoes. You know, when we started, obviously, we had to compete against the all-you-can-eat buffets. And most of them were free. The gamblers were getting cards, vouchers, and they were eating for free. And that's what I was really the most worried about. But little by little, people started to think, okay, you know what? There is good food in a restaurant. And I think so people came still for gaming, but they wanted to go to a restaurant, especially a restaurant with the name on it.

8:58And the casino people, the casino owners, they said, you know, we want to keep the gamblers in our place. So they said, we have to bring in chefs so we can send our big gamblers to their restaurants in our hotel with the famous chef. So it's obvious, Wolfgang, now that restaurants play a role in the economy of a casino. You want to make sure folks stick around and gamble. But it seems to me that the dynamic of diners have really changed. And they're obviously, they want things like dim sum. They want Sichuan food. They want Austrian cuisine. They want really smart breads. To you, what are some of the foods at some of your restaurants, the style of dining that's really resonating with the Las Vegas diner?

9:49Well, Las Vegas diner today are not any different than Los Angeles or San Francisco or whatever. You know, obviously you have more hotel rooms in Las Vegas than anywhere. But you have people come for football games. You know, if Chicago plays the Raiders in Las Vegas, you have people come from Chicago, you know, or you have people come from New York. So we have all these international clients. And now people know you get great food, great service in so many amazing restaurants there. So they people have options now. Whereas in the old time, there were very few options. And I think now if you go to Las Vegas, if you stay three days or a week in Las Vegas, you can eat in a great restaurant every night and be totally happy.

10:39I think you're in Paris, maybe not with the view of the Eiffel Tower, the same one, but similar. Now you have the options really to get a lot of things there, you know, from small restaurants, even off the strip restaurants to the restaurants in the hotels. And, you know, we were the first one. And now we still have four restaurants in the hotels and one downtown 1228, which is our bakery where we bake all the bread for our restaurants and for some other restaurants too. So I think Las Vegas, probably because it has so many hotel rooms, it's really one of our best markets. Let me ask you, Wolfgang, about products and sourcing.

11:19I think there's a big misperception that you're in the desert. Why would you have seafood in the desert? But obviously, that's a false misperception. Let's talk about how you source your products to Las Vegas. How does that work? I mean, these are massive restaurants, and you're getting truly some of the finest products in the world to Las Vegas. Well, you know, we are after all in 2024, not in 1924. You know, we have refrigerator trucks, we have airplanes and everything. So, you know, if we get travelers from Italy to Las Vegas, it's the same getting them to New York or it's the same getting them to anywhere.

12:06The same thing is with fish. If I want fish from the East Coast, if I want black bars from Maine or scallops from Maine, I have them in LA. So frying them from Bangor, Maine to Las Vegas is not any different, you know. They all overnight them and we get them the next day. So it's perfectly fresh. So the same thing every morning, trucks leave from LA or even from the farmer's market in Santa Monica to bring Harris berries and to bring all the best vegetable fruits and stuff like that to Las Vegas. So more than transportation, you know, Las Vegas is not far away, five hours. So if they pick this thing up this morning, they are there by noon in Las Vegas.

12:49So we can get everything there the same way we have it here. You know, Las Vegas is a town that has a lot of private aircraft coming in and out. Have you had any products ever, any stories about food being flown in private? No, you know, we fly in our guests, but not the products. So the products have to be organized enough so we know if somebody wants something special. But you have basically everything you want in Vegas already. You know, you can, if you want live lobster, you can buy them there. If you want great salmon, you can buy them there. So meat, it keeps anyway, like our restaurant cut, we have all these different meats.

13:29So that doesn't matter if it's flown in today and we serve it next week because most of the beef is dry aged and it's better anyway if it's aged a little bit. So I think the products we get in Las Vegas are second to none. We are very close to Southern California for all the produce, the fruits and so forth. You know, I know in New York, they have Harry's berries in New York. I talked to my friend Daniel and, you know, it's farther there. By the time you send it to my plane, then it sits at the airport, then they bring it to the fine dining restaurants here, deliver in the morning and you get them by the afternoon.

14:09You can serve them at night. So it's really not a problem to get things. In the old times, 30 years ago or so, it was different because you didn't have a lot of trucks going down. There was not the demand for specialized ingredients like what we have in restaurants. You know, the only big hotels, they just order everything from the Grand Central Market. They pick carrots, pick zucchini, and tomatoes, which all look the same. They don't get them from the farmer's market like the tomatoes and so forth. Very commodity, yeah, exactly. Yeah, totally. So now it's specialized just like we have it here.

14:46Let me ask you, I think this week we're really trying to define Las Vegas cuisine. And, you know, it's such an international town. It's hard to say that, but Wolfgang, someone who knows food so well, are there any menu items or dishes that represent the modern Las Vegas diner right now? Is there a movement happening there amongst your restaurants or others? I really respect your take, and I think you have a great answer to this one. I think we have a brand. If you go to Spago, you want to get things what people know for. Why do people go to Hermes? Because they want a towel around their neck, a scarf, or they want a bag if you're rich.

15:26So the same thing when they come to Spago. They might want to smoke some pizza or they might want anion lotte. So I think we really represent our brands. I don't think in Las Vegas you can say, okay, this is a Las Vegas cuisine. Because you have every chef transported from all over the world who have restaurants. If it's Nobu or if it's anybody, you might name them, you know, they are there. I've got a few more questions. Thank you so much for your time. It's been so fun chatting with you. Let me ask you right now, what is the menu looking like at Spago Las Vegas, the restaurant, your flagship in the Bellagio?

16:05What's on the menu? What are some of the items that really represent Spago 24? Well, I think a lot of these things are similar to what we have in Los Angeles. You know, if you get the smoked salmon pizza, if you get the anilotti, maybe now it's springtime, we have them filled with English peas. or if we have like our Santa Barbara schnitzel in season now, so we use them. Beef and everything we use all year long. Wiener schnitzel, my favorite, we use that now in there too. So it's really delicious. And for dessert, we have the kaisersman and a sarrotong to the chocolate souffle. So it's really something for everybody.

16:48But I'm really excited now about our newest restaurant, which is called Carama, which means Dima. You know, my mother was a chef too, so in her honor, I opened this restaurant at the Mandela Bay, and it's more an Italian restaurant. You know, you can get everything from the franzino and the salt crust to my mother's favorite ravioli to a pasta amatriciana. We even have a station with the saloon in the middle of the dining hall, so if you want to just sit down and have a little prosciutto with some melon maybe they're getting in season or figs or things like that or heavy mortadella or salami or pulatello and things like that.

17:33And then we have great pastas and a lot of grilled food too. Like in Tuscany, people love grilled food and we have great desserts, you know, everything from a new version of a tiramisu to hazelnut ice cream and fresh vanilla ice cream. we make it to order. So I think it's really special with the great Italian winelettes. You know, I love Barolos. I love Pabravesco. And I think we have really a great winelettes there too. So to go with the food. Someone does well on the blackjack table, maybe hits a couple in a row. They're going to have a little bit of change in their pocket. They're ordering the Super Tuscans.

18:13They're coming over, ordering a Super Tuscan, ordering the big Barolos. Let me ask you, Has there been any big baller experiences coming into Spago that you want to talk about? I feel you win some, you lose some, but when you win some, you want to go celebrate. And why not go to Spago? Or, you know, you have the big gambler. They get invited by the hotel and they can go and order Petrus if they want to. They can order Lafitte if they want to. And naturally, they want caviar. They want Kobe steak. They want, you know, the best of the best. So if you're a big gambler, you know, you pay one way or another.

18:49So they get the biggest suite in the hotel. So you have a lot of these high rollers, you know, who get invited by the hotel, which is really for us a great thing because they demand the best. And they look more on the right side of the menu than on the content or the dishes. And I said, okay, I take this wine here because it's$5 ,000 a quarter. But we have also, and we always were part of the city, so we have a lot of local people come. Like for brunch at Caramano, we have a lot of local people come. The same thing at Fargo. You know, we make it easy for parking. People come in, drop off their car, and go to the restaurant.

19:33You don't have to go to a casino. The same thing at Fargo. In the Lachio, you know, you get the North Valley, you walk in, and there you are. You go shopping and you go and eat, sit outside at Spago, watch the fountains. And I'm going to say, it's a great experience. And look at the Eiffel Tower. I love the fountains. The fountains are so remarkable. For real, I've been several times. I love checking out the fountains. Final few questions. And thanks again for your time. Las Vegas is a city to indulge. When you have a little extra time, how do you indulge when you're visiting Las Vegas? My indulging is really going to games or concerts.

20:13You know, I love boxing. Obviously, it's my favorite. I'm going to see the fight in Riyadh. It's going to be boring because there's no alcohol and there's no ambience like in Las Vegas. You don't get the excitement. Like I went to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas and it was amazing. I went, you know, to the hockey finals and it was great a few years ago. I went to see U2 at the opening at the fair. They are an amazing arena, amazing concert. You don't see that anywhere else. So it is the city of entertainment. And now it really is the city of great food. And great food is entertainment. If you go to a great restaurant, you can enjoy a tasting menu or you can just have a wonderful steak like a cat and have Matt, the chef there, make you a few appetizers and you're done.

21:04I think now the restaurant scene in Las Vegas is as diverse and interesting as anywhere. I think Las Vegas is amazing. It's an ever-rolling city. And, you know, there's nobody who can compete now with Las Vegas. Like, I remember 25 years ago, I thought maybe Atlantic City is going to be the Las Vegas of the East Coast, but it never happened. and you know the rest they only have casinos like the casino in uh down in tampa is really a busy casino but it's only one and you don't have the variety of things to do i mean las vegas is perfect to go for a weekend you know you go to see some shows have some great dinner and where else can you see all these amazing artists from lady gaga to uh all this uh puno mouse you name them they We all have presidencial now and they play in Las Vegas.

22:01Plus, you can go out and also have wonderful meals, which before was a city of buffets. Now it's a city of fine restaurants. 100 % agree with the fine restaurants. And it really is part of this week of coverage. We're hitting all the different formats. And let's just go over, just for this interview, can we just go over the five restaurants? Yeah. So we have five restaurants in Las Vegas. So we started with Spargo. Then we opened the Wolfgang Park Bar and Grill at the MGM brand, which is great too. And it's more moderately priced. And then we opened a cut at the Palazzo, probably one of the best steakhouses there is anywhere.

22:47and about five years ago we moved Spago from the Forum to the Bellagio and I think that was a great move because the Bellagio really have our customer base you know it's still after all this years one of the best three best hotels in town so we are very excited to be there and the restaurant is doing very well and then we open a cut I said already and then we open Karma at the Mandalay Bay. So we had Lupo there for many years, since 95 or so. And now we remodeled it completely. And I wanted to do an homage to my mother. My mother was a great chef. She could make the best pastas. And so we opened this Italian-style restaurant, obviously with a few of my influences and so forth.

23:40And then we need good bread. That's so about a year ago, we opened 1228 downtown off the strip, a bakery with a little restaurant and a bar. But mainly it's a bakery, so to get good bread. Remember, when we opened Spargo, we had to make our own bread. And you couldn't get good bread. There were no bakery. It was all manufactured, you know, water bread type bread there. So now you can get bread as good there as anywhere. Well, I love hearing your memory of Off Strip or your thoughts on the Off Strip. And the fact that you're thinking about Off Strip for your bar and your bread program. You must get excited about when you're off the main strip, when you're working the concept.

24:26Because that's probably a little more for the locals. But also, I personally like going down there for the food. I like being a little Off Strip. You know what? It's a great contrast being in a big hotel with thousands of people. You go off strip, you feel like you're in a neighborhood. You know, it feels like your neighborhood restaurant where you can eat a pizza, a glass of red wine, hang out, and that's it. You're not going to go to a show every day. You're not going to go out every night. Sometimes you just take it easy. Or we serve breakfast there so you can get your Wimbledon Jail or the Menemem or things like that and be very happy.

25:03And I think the same thing is with Karama at Mandele Bay. You know, it's a restaurant where you can walk in. We have a beautiful bar. You say, okay, I just want some salumi and a lot of salumi. And then maybe a pasta. You sit at a bar by yourself. Maybe, you know, you don't always have somebody with you. And you feel totally fine. We have a great bar program, a great wine. So I think it's really, to me, going there is such a joy. because the pastas, our chef, Jan Max, is a great Italian chef. So he understands what I like. So to me, it couldn't be any better. When U2 was playing at this fair, which was an amazing concert, this fair is amazing.

25:49It's an arena. And, you know, we are there at Cut. You could walk over the bridge. So you're right at this fair there. And we had some appetites and a cocktail. and after the show was over, seven minutes later, we were back at the restaurant and at the main course and hung out for an hour or two. So it's a perfect way to spend the evening, you know. What a great way to close this interview, that memory, seven minutes, you're there in the dining room after seeing you two at The Sphere. Wolfgang Puck, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you, bud.

26:33Liza, we're here in Las Vegas. We've had a week of dining adventures. We're recapping it along the way. And one thing that we wanted to see right away, you had this great idea when we started prepping for this trip. It was to really focus on Las Vegas' Chinatown. Why did you want us to go there? Well, I've heard a lot of good things about the food in Las Vegas' Chinatown. And also, I just want to eat Chinese food everywhere I go, full disclosure. So I think the combination of those two factors led us there. But I think we both would say that driving around Chinatown, eating as much food as we could in one day was one of the highlights of the trip.

27:08Yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing, you know, Las Vegas has always been considered a real destination for folks from China, from East Asia, like Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, because it's a gambling destination and culturally gambling is large in Asia. So I think there's always been the sense that in the casinos, you can get great dim sum, you can get Cantonese food, even Szechuan food. But really what we wanted to focus was to leave the casinos and go to this Chinatown and see some of the, you know, I would say the highlights, some of the favorites, but also some new spots. So really when you started doing your research, there was a couple places we had to go to.

27:46But the first place I believe was always on your list. Yeah, and I just want to give a little bit more context. Something I think is interesting about Vegas Chinatown is that it's not a residential Chinatown. A lot of the Chinatowns across the United States in places like New York and San Francisco were created by immigration moving to an area and then people making their own restaurants and businesses to support their community. And then here in Vegas, Chinatown was actually created as a business venture. In the late 90s, they started developing these kind of Chinatown malls that have, as you're saying, food and drinks and all kinds of things from all across Asia as a bid to be attracting the tourists that were coming to the region.