414: All in on Las Vegas Food with Marc Vetri 56 Floors Up

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. You know, you have all these restaurants out in the suburbs now with like chefs leaving, you know, the big restaurants here and like moving out and like opening their own restaurants out of the burbs. You know, so it's really like developed over the last 10 years. This is Taste, all in on Las Vegas food presented by Las Vegas. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59Our Las Vegas week continues with a fun conversation with Mark Vetri. We wanted to talk with Mark about opening a restaurant in Las Vegas, Vetri Cucina at the Palms. So what's it like moving his Philadelphia-based operation across the country to cook on the 56th floor overlooking the Strip? Not easy. We get into how Mark has settled in and some of the exciting regional Italian dishes he is preparing. Also on the show, Eliza catches up with Josh Smith, the executive chef of Delilah, the Art Deco-themed supper club at the Wynn Las Vegas. They talk about what it takes to maintain buzz in the desert and how there is only one Las Vegas when it comes to showmanship of dining out.

1:39I hope you enjoy this very special Las Vegas episode of the show.

1:52mark vetri welcome to this is taste dude you're in vegas what could be bad i'm on the 56th floor you know okay so take us to where you're at right now you have a restaurant in las vegas a lot of folks who listen to our show know you as a philadelphia chef but since 2018 you've been in Las Vegas. Tell me about it. It's just really, really amazing. So I'm actually looking out. I can actually see the arenas from up here, the whole Vegas, the actual skyline. It's just really amazing. So I was asked to come to Vegas a lot of years. We opened Vetri in 1998. And through the years, there were always new things opening here.

2:33And someone would ask us, hey, you want to open up here you want to open up here so we would you know ride out here and you know sort of look at it and just kind of say ah it's not really for us you know there were always like huge huge restaurants right several hundred seats it just wasn't something that i uh that i actually thought i would like but then 2017 rolled around you know we had actually sold most of the restaurants but i still had all the veteran and um you know we got a phone call from these guys here um you know it was like something that like michael simon he was opening up here the owners uh they wanted to stick something high in italy you know up in the alizé space this this was actually alizé for i don't know 20 years right michael was like well if you know you want to high end italy there's only um one guy Yeah, the next thing you knew, you were on a flight out to Las Vegas.

3:33Yeah, you're like never thinking, you're thinking like, I'm not going to go there. It's big box restaurants and not really your vibe. But then next thing you know, you're overlooking at the Palms. And, you know, the Palms to me is a cool space because I thought of it as like where the real world was filmed in Las Vegas. That's what I think about. But the Palms, you know, has had many different iterations. But now, since you've been there, it's a real fine dining destination. And I want to ask you about the diners in Las Vegas. And, you know, who's coming to your restaurant at the Palms in Las Vegas right now?

4:04We have a nice sort of mix. You know, we have we have a lot of locals, you know, you know, because we also have the restaurant that's out in Summerlin. So then, you know, since we're like right off of the main area here, we also have a lot of foodies who are just here for the weekend or, you know, here for something. And they know about us, so they make a reservation. So it's just a nice mix. Yeah, Vetri in Philly, you know, has a real reputation, tasting menu, really like legendary space, legendary service. Now, let me ask you, when you're taking this ethic to Las Vegas and kind of transposing it there, what are you able to do that maybe you can't do in your Philadelphia restaurant?

4:50The Vegas sort of scene, right, is a little more showy. We have a lot more room here to do kind of, you know, service, like in the room with everybody. Obviously, the Philly restaurant is, you know, four walls, you know, this you can like look out and have this awesome, awesome scenic meal, you know, and it's just like larger, you know, things are larger here, you know, whereas Philly, you know, we only have the actual footprint. that we have. So it just makes it easier to work in. I bet. I mean, and I also bet that your diner, while in Philly, you have a legendary reputation, you still need to kind of always be thinking about rebooting, refreshing, keeping excited.

5:34Vegas, you know, you've got, not that you're not doing that in Vegas, you of course are, but like, there are people who've never been to America who are going to Vegas. And like, you're probably getting a lot of international guests. And you're getting the Italians too, I bet. So I bet that's cool to have some Italian diners in there. A lot of folks from Italy. You know, we're getting a lot of CEOs from the area. It's a huge, huge, huge mix. I'd love to get a sense of some of the dishes and how the menu is constructed at your restaurant at the Palms. Give our listeners a sense of what it's like to dine at Mark Fetri and get a sense of like the style of service.

6:11Like what are we looking forward to there? We wanted to start how we started out east, you know, which is we never offered. I mean, originally they are either a five course menu six course menu it was always just you know a la carte um and you know that's how we started in philly and then you know we started off with the weekend six course menus seven course menus and then throughout the week it was only you know you could order right off of the menu um so that's kind of how we started off here we have like Seven or eight things that started off in Philly are still on the menu now. You know, we have our almond tortellini.

6:54We have our spinach yucky. We have our sweet onion crepe. We have far pastrami. You know, so those are items that are constantly always on the menu. Then, obviously, throughout the four seasons, we have things that have sort of rotated through the menus throughout the years. And then we're always making up new things. So you're going to get a mix of all of those. And now we offer a longer form menu with wines and everything. So you can have either or. You can walk in, sit at the bar, and just order just one dish. or you can actually sit down and have the whole thing. Give me a sense of a night at your restaurant because the diner, the hours are different.

7:44How are you flowing with Vegas, with a city that is always operating, that is always on? Are you adjusting the way you do service? Are you going a little later? How does that work? This isn't like an area where everybody's walking around, where you have thousands of folks just walking around. You have to, you know, want to eat here. You have to make an effort to get over here. So, you know, I mean, five o 'clock we open. We start to slow down at like 930 during the week, a little bit later, Friday, Saturday nights. This is not like, you know, folks walking in here at like midnight, 11 o 'clock at night.

8:24You know, this is a very normal city restaurant. Which is cool because it allows you to have a style of service that is your comfort zone and like having this at the top floor of a casino, I mean, but also be a normal restaurant is really unique. And it's a nice lifestyle, honestly. You know, a lot of the servers here, they're home by 1130. Let me ask you about your diners. Like, what is a typical diner like? Or what are some of the folks when you're walking the floor? I know you're in Las Vegas now and you walked the floor last night. You're the chef. Who are you seeing there? What are you talking about?

9:04Young, old, everything. I mean, it is just a whole mix. We don't have, like, a specific, like, I don't, like, ever see a room filled with, like, 30-something-year-olds or 40-year-olds, you know. or it's just a whole mix of folks from all walks of life. Yeah, it's really cool. You know, we have folks who like we'd hear often who have a lot of money, who just love it up here. And then we have, you know, folks who like save up for a year, you know, because they want to have their anniversary here. And that's always such an honor, you know, to be like, wow, you like saved up for a year because you wanted to like eat here.

9:42Like that is, that is amazing. So we've got world's 50 best in town, bringing the top chefs around the world. And I have to ask you like a broad question. How has Las Vegas become such a prominent food city in America? I think it started off, obviously, years ago in the early 90s with them kind of searching for those real celebrities, Wolfgang, and all those early sort of restaurants that started making the restaurant industry look like sexy. And it obviously started with Vegas, them here. Then it was all about just one area, the main strip. But I think recently since I've been out here, there's been sort of this movement to the birds.

10:35I think over the last 10 years, where everybody used to think of Vegas as just one area, now it's like a whole city and it's got a football team, it's got a hockey team, and you have all these restaurants out in the suburbs now with chefs leaving the big restaurants. here and like moving out and like opening their their own restaurants out of the burbs you know so it's really like developed over the last uh 10 years and it's and it's really fun to watch i mean i i love it here yeah it's been fun to follow this story over the course of my time writing and really changing perception and you know we're on the ground in vegas we're doing lots of work and and i say work haha we're doing lots of like quote-unquote work uh you know indulging and and visiting all the different styles of service and different styles of restaurants in the city.

11:28And we've definitely this week have talked about it. When you have time to leave your restaurant and get to see Vegas, where are you going to any places? Where are you going? I love Strega. That's a great restaurant. I love Esther's. You know, he's awesome. I love the old school restaurants here, the Gold Steer. went there last night. Would you order the Gold Steer? I love that. I've heard of that restaurant. Yeah. Chicken Angelo. Best thing on the menu. It's like, I mean, listen, everything's really good, obviously, the old school stuff. But that's like, it's like, memory for me, it's like, you know, they sort of fry some egg around it and it's got like lemon and some mushrooms, artichokes.

12:17And it's just really amazing. I always have to have it, when I'm there. Okay, so let's continue on your list because you've done the work, Mark. You have some spots. I love it. I go to Amalfi, you know, when I go on the Strip. That's an awesome restaurant. Obviously here, I love Michael Simon's restaurant, Mabel's, you know, for barbecue. I love, you know, I used to go to Lotus of Siam a lot. Have you recruited any of your fellow Philly chef friends to come out to Vegas? Have you been selling them on it? Michael Solomonoff. He just opened up Fed with Donuts Chicken. It's at Red Rock. So that's awesome.

12:57And they're all asking me now. When I first announced that I was opening up here, they were all like, really? Vegas? I'm like, yeah. Yeah, man. It's cool. And after the years, and then we had the virus, and then we sort of moved this restaurant over to Red Rock, and we had that gone, and then we just opened up Fiorella. So now they're all like, you got three restaurants out there. How do I get in and some of this stuff? I don't know. I just got a call. I don't know. This perception of Vegas versus the reality of Vegas. It's obvious that there's kind of a reductive or dated perception that the food in Las Vegas is not good.

13:42It's not ambitious. It's not diverse. It's not even food. I don't even think it's like, you know, there used to be. And, you know, I think I used to have it also, you know, I don't want to go to Vegas, Vegas, you know, Vegas is where, you know, you go for the weekend for this, but that was always the mindset, right? Oh, Vegas, you know, even my, my wife was like Vegas, why do you want to put them Vegas? And then, you know, once you come out and you're like right out, you know, Red Rock and Summerlin, Henderson and all these areas and you kind of, then you go to like a football game and a hockey game and you're like, this is like a city.

14:22you know i don't i i mean i rarely head over to you know the strip area like i rarely like that's sort of like you thinking uh you know philadelphia is only like the liberty bell vegas was like kind of blocked into there's only the strip and there's nothing else and like now it's everything have you been to the sphere yet have you this is such a big event i was there last night the opening at dead and go yes oh my god i'm it was fucking amazing am i allowed to say that it's amazing it was it's wow yeah that was my my first time i saw some stuff on instagram last night there were moments i like thought the whole world was was moving um you know if you're not able to kind of open your eyes for that stuff yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend going but the sound i mean I mean, honestly, how it's run, like the food stalls, everything.

15:20It's just like, wow. Like, that's incredible. Like, everyone has to go to that once. It's just amazing. Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's been a lot of press out here, you know, New York, hearing about it. But, like, it seems like once you go, it's like a different level. Once you're in the space, it's not what you expect. So, Mark, let me ask you about the Sphere. Are people going to your restaurant before or after Sphere shows? Not after, but, you know, they'll go. Yeah. But yeah, because the show started at 7, 730 last night. So a lot of people came there first. What a great pairing, you know, a tasting menu at Vetri and then going to see Dead & Co.

16:00The Sphere. What's not to love about that? What's not to love? Come on. What's not to love about that, man? Mark Vetri, this has been such a fun conversation. I'm really I'm really impressed and excited about your future in Las Vegas. and it sounds like things are really happening there. Thanks a lot for joining This Is Taste. Thank you very much, man. My honor to do it.

16:27Josh Smith, This Is Taste. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Absolutely. You're having us in the most beautiful dining room I've been in in Vegas. And the fact that I'm not allowed to take photos in here makes it even more appealing. Yeah, I would never, but it's an audio only podcast. Everyone will just have to imagine everything we're sitting around. Yeah, and come visit. And come visit. Yeah. To start off today, I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your vision for the menu here at Delilah in Las Vegas. So Delilah is a supper club and it's kind of new American blended with classic American sort of elevated comfort food.

17:03So we do like a really excellent classic crab cake. You know, we do pigs in a blanket, but they're sort of reimagined. Our Caesar salad is reimagined. So there's some, some, you know, modern twists on the food or just my own creative input. But for the most part, it's stuff that I really want to speak to the guests to be super comforting and not have to have them get their phone out and Google, you know, menu terms or ingredients. Yeah. We've all been there before in terms of these reimaginings, how is the Caesar or the pigs in a blanket different than what folks might expect? So the Caesar salad is something that I developed that uses endive.

17:42It's the same family as romaine, but it's just much more, the way we build it is kind of leaf by leaf and you can eat it almost like nachos. It almost creates like this finger food experience. So you can grab the endive leaves by the end and the sauce is just on the, like the fatter side of the endive. We also use king crab to elevate the dish instead of anchovy. So it's classic, you know, great Parmesan. We do like a breadcrumb instead of a crouton so that every bite has some crunch. Really delicious. The pigs in a blanket, we use wagyu sausage that's all beef. But then we also use a laminated croissant dough.

18:16So there's a process of like wrapping them and then having to proof them correctly because it's a yeasted dough. And then when it bakes in the oven, it's got all those like million layers that you can see, you know, from the side view like a croissant does. The flakiest pigs in a blanket. it. Yeah, super flaky. Is it getting dipped in anything? We do a really nice honey mustard. So we do Dijon and just a touch of mayonnaise. And then we use really good wildflower honey to make that really sweet and delicious. Nice. I have to ask you, I saw Beef Wellington on the menu as well. That seemed a little elaborate.

18:48Where did that idea and execution come from? Something I've been doing for a long time and I really wanted to bring it here. It just makes sense for this room, brings this table side element to the guest experience and really kind of elevates, you know, ingredients that are otherwise, you know, I think everybody, every restaurant serves a filet, you know, filet and mushrooms and kind of a red wine sauce, you know, it's pretty classic. But, you know, this presentation just shows that we're taking the extra time to, you know, make the customer experience special. Yeah. What is the table side component?

19:16Just slicing it, saucing it, plating it. So they bring it out on a little wooden carving board. It's still, it's served for two and sometimes shared with a larger table, of course, you know, that people just want to share their whole meal and, you know, kind of experience a lot of different dishes. So they carve that up table side, plate it table side, whether it's shared or individual, um, and then sauce the plate, garnish the plate. Nice. Um, speaking a little bit about ingredients and how they fit into what you're doing here, how does like sourcing the best ingredients kind of help lead the menu in terms of what you're working with?

19:48I think the, the win makes it really easy, uh, to bring forth the best ingredients that, that, that money can buy because the guest is so attuned to high-end food. And that allows me to really look for every single ingredient top to bottom, the best that I can find, whether it's olive oil or vinegar or the beef or the seafood that's flown in daily. The Wynn has incredible vendors and just exposes us to great product, whether it be seasonal vegetables or just the best beef that's available. Yeah. This idea of seasonality, I think, is really interesting because we're obviously out here in the desert where I think maybe at least to someone who's not from Vegas, all of the seasons kind of blend together.

20:29So are you looking to California for seasonality? For sure. Yeah. Our local is California, but we do have farmers markets in Las Vegas and they have incredible local stuff. You know, just as outside of Vegas, Parham, you know, there's, there's farmland in Nevada as you drive further, you know, away from Vegas and get out of the desert. So, you know, it is the driest state in the nation, but it's also, you know, there's some fruitful areas with, farmland, just not really enough to support what we do. You have the scale here. Yeah, the scale of the hotel and this restaurant's volume is, you know, it takes a bigger farm.

21:03So is it the LA farmer's market that you're sourcing from or all over? And all the way up to San Francisco, like all the way up to the Bay Area. We've got vendors that actually like, you know, call themselves foragers, but they don't find wild ingredients, you know, out in the woods, like picking mushrooms. They deal with the foragers that pick the mushrooms up in Northern California, buy from them and drive a truck down every week to bring produce to Vegas. So that would be on the more specialty side if we really needed an excellent fruit or like a really nice seasonal mushroom that's coming from California, then we look to those vendors.

21:36Yeah. You know, I had another chef mention a forager to me in that context and it wasn't a term that I was as familiar with, but I guess it does make sense that when you're bringing things out to Vegas, especially at the scale that you're working with, that that is its own kind of foraging in terms of being that middleman. Right, right, exactly. So with the Delilah, obviously the kind of CNBC and like exclusive atmosphere is part of what the restaurant is known for. What is it like for you to be the chef working in that kind of space? It's really fun. You know, I'm not a, I don't follow sports and I'm not like the, you know, I'm not looking at, you know, the magazines for all the like celebrity tea, but being here, I think that's special because all I really care about is the food.

22:15I'm in the kitchen making sure the experience is the same for everyone. But we have lots of celebrity guests, lots of celebrity performances, you know, from athletes to, you know, to musical performers on the regular. It's just like every night I go home. My wife's like, who came in last night? You know, it's a it's a special place to work. Yeah. Do you get to sneak out of the kitchen when there's a good performance happening? Are you back there? For the performances, for sure. I always go out and try to see, you know, a little bit because at that moment, nobody's looking for their food. You know, when somebody famous steps on stage, nobody's like, hey, where's my appetizer?

22:47So, you know, those are the brief times that I do step out. But typically I won't go to a table for somebody famous just to, you know, just a brown nose. I just kind of like to stay in my kitchen and make sure the food's perfect. Definitely. And you've already shouted out a lot of great menu items. I'm curious if there's like a dish on the menu that is your favorite or that maybe is like in season and special right now. Some of my favorites, and you'll kind of hear what I mean about the classics and updated classics, is the London broil. So when I was a kid, you know, on special occasions, my dad would make London broil used to be a really cheap cut that had to be marinated for days.

23:22But it came out really tender and special. And so we we do a London broil, but we use a five Japanese Wagyu. So we bring in the best beef possible. And we instead of marinating it because it doesn't really need to marinate, it's so tender already. we do a process called triple sear which is like you know kind of a Japanese invented process that used to be kind of like sake and mirin and soy but we do it with the ingredients that would be in a normal London broil so there's red wine bath and then it gets seared and then it goes into a Worcestershire bath and gets seared to bring a lot of umami like sweet glazy flavors to the outside of the beef um the macaroni gratin a so we take you know something like macaroni that's pretty pedestrian every restaurant has it and we do something really special with it so we make this uh this loaf of noodles there they start out as a longer noodle um and and then on the plate it looks like somebody has stacked up little baby macaronis um all standing on end so a lot of customers like literally think that we're doing that in the back that we're standing up the macaroni yeah yeah but we're not but uh but it's it's a special presentation it's a really delicious way to eat it because it sears the cheese and you kind of get that like crispy cheese flavor along with like the melty gooey cheese flavor what kind of cheese do you have going on in there a mimolette backed up with some parmesan nice mimolette's a french yellow cheese kind of has a cheddar you know flavor profile and appearance sort of nutty do cheddar without actually doing cheddar right right so is it true that you're from vegas yeah born and raised yeah so i'm curious what it's like for you to see the dining scene in Vegas evolve over the years?

24:59How have things changed? I think it's amazing. You know, I've been cooking in Vegas since 1999. You know, back then Vegas already had really famous chefs stepping in like Michael Mina and Wolfgang Puck. And, you know, we had some really big celebrity chefs at the Wynn, not at the Wynn back then, but Steve Wynn had celebrity chefs at the Bellagio. And, you know, he continued that legacy when he built the Wynn and the Encore properties. I think it's been incredible to see the evolution of the food scene here. I think it's, you know, since I started cooking here, it's been a force to be reckoned with, but, you know, now it kind of has its own chefs, which is incredible, you know, on and off strip.

25:36You know, people like myself that were born here and kind of came up in the culinary scene in Vegas. And now we're hosting the world's 50 best next month, which is really special. Yeah, that's so exciting. And I guess to close, I'm curious if you could tell me a few of your favorite places to eat in Vegas, both on and off the strip? Off strip, I love Esther's Kitchen. I think everybody will say the same thing. It's top when it comes to Italian. It's seasonal kind of California cuisine Italian. He's just moved into a new space with wood fire ovens and a wood fire grill. I love Raku, which is a Japanese kind of charcoal grilled concept.

26:10It's always where I go for my birthday or some special occasion. And then on the strip, we've got a new chef at Mizumi here at the Wynn. that's incredible for Japanese. I love sushi. I love eating seafood. Those are my favorite places. I love hearing that Esther's Kitchen has your co-sign because we went for lunch yesterday and had such a special meal. This like green garlic asparagus pizza that we had was like so much better than I was expecting in the best possible way. It was really great. Well, thank you so much for giving all of your rundown of Vegas and taking some time to talk with us. It's been really fun.

26:42Thank you. Thanks for coming. This has been All In on Las Vegas Food presented by Las Vegas.