Michelin Guide Awards Stars to Four Las Vegas Casino Restaurants

^{Restaurateurs and culinary connoisseurs gathered at Fontainebleau in Las Vegas for the Michelin Guide’s ceremony, giving out awards and stars to restaurants in Nevada and neighboring states. (Photo: Al Powers / LVCVA)}

Four Michelin stars have landed in Las Vegas this year, and the city's casino restaurants showed out even in the recommended restaurant list.

The first Michelin Guide Southwest selection was held on Wednesday night at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, bringing Michelin's restaurant ratings back to the city for the first time since 2009. The city earned a total of 24 distinctions, spread across restaurants that earned stars, Bib Gourmands, and Michelin recognition.

Four Las Vegas restaurants earned Michelin stars, all located inside casinos on the Strip.

A Michelin star is one of the highest honors in the culinary world, awarded to restaurants with exceptional cooking. They can earn one, two, or three stars, but three stars is the most prestigious (and rarest) distinction possible. Bib Gourmand is a separate honor that recognizes great cooking at an accessible price, essentially the organization's way of saying the food is excellent without the fine dining price tag.

Restaurants on the recommendation list don't necessarily get stars or a Bib Gourmand, but were still judged worthy of inclusion by Michelin's inspectors, out of the thousands of restaurants they could have chosen instead.

Four Starred Restaurants on the Strip

The biggest winner on the list was Restaurant de Joël Robuchon at MGM Grand, which earned two Michelin stars. This restaurant got the highest distinction awarded anywhere in the Southwest guide. It's on the casino floor and a French contemporary restaurant offering an elaborate, multi-course dining experience.

The elaborate dining room inside Restaurant de Joël Robuchon looks like the living room you’d see in a million-dollar mansion. (Photo: courtesy of LVCVA)

Michelin describes the dining experience as an “event” with a progression of courses, house-baked breads, and an extensive wine list. On the menu, you'll find unique dishes like crustacean gelée with crab meat and caviar, or even roasted quail with red poached pear.

Chef Eleazar Villanueva accepted the award on stage during the ceremony, and the restaurant’s general manager, Sean Christopher, received the Michelin Outstanding Service Award.

“To work alongside Mr. Robuchon and experience his standards firsthand was a gift,” Christopher said to the Michelin Guide. “It is our responsibility not only to preserve what he created, but to ensure that every detail remains faithful to his vision.”

Three restaurants received one Michelin star each: Restaurant Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace, é by José Andrés at The Cosmopolitan, and L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon at MGM Grand.

Restaurant Guy Savoy is another contemporary French restaurant on the second floor of the Augustus Tower at Caesars Palace, offering stunning city views and a dining experience. One of the signature dishes is the black truffle and artichoke soup, but the wine list also deserves a mention. The list is massive, comparable in size to a medieval manuscript, because it comes with its own entire side table.

É by José Andrés is tucked inside Jaleo at The Cosmopolitan and offers a theatrical dining experience. You can expect high-class Spanish cuisine, including dishes like PB&J on meringue bread, foie gras mousse, pine nut butter, and huckleberry jam, or a Spanish vermouth-inspired dish with Santa Barbara prawns.

“As a boy, I would stand outside the Michelin-starred restaurants of Barcelona and dream of what it would feel like to have stars…and today, with one new star for é and a Bib Gourmand for China Poblano, our incredible restaurant teams have made many dreams come true,” Chef Andrés said in a statement.

Joël Robuchon restaurants really showed out, considering that L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon also got one star. The restaurant, led by Chef David Lee, has been operating at MGM Grand since 2005. They offer contemporary French cuisine in a red-and-black dining room. Michelin’s highlighted dishes include a potato salad with black truffle vinaigrette, sea scallops and coconut foam, along with roasted quail served with pommes purée (mashed potatoes).

Other Restaurants on the Michelin List

Although only four restaurants received stars, several other casino restaurants received a Michelin Recommended designation, including:

• Bouchon, COTE, and Estiatorio Milos at The Venetian
• Gymkhana at Aria
• Michael Mina at Bellagio
• Mott 32 at The Palazzo
• Ping Pang Pong at Gold Coast
• Wing Lei at Wynn
• Stubborn Seed at Resorts World

The Las Vegas Bib Gourmand recognitions went to three restaurants, one of which is located inside The Cosmopolitan. China Poblano, another Jose Andres restaurant, was recognized for offering good food at a good price.

The entire Southwest includes 64 restaurants across 24 cuisines, with 18 Bib Gourmand restaurants.

Michelin Stars Return to Vegas After 17 Years

The return of the Michelin Guide to Vegas is significant to recognize the city's high-end dining. The new Southwest selection shows that the Strip's casino restaurants are an important part of the identity, but many restaurants in other areas, such as Chinatown, Summerlin, and downtown Las Vegas, also made the list.

This was the first time any Las Vegas restaurant had qualified for a star since Michelin shut down its Las Vegas guide in 2009. Instead of bringing it back solely to Las Vegas, they returned with a larger Southwest edition that covered multiple states, including Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.

Restaurant Guy Savoy and L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon were repeat Michelin-star award winners in 2009, earning two and three stars, respectively.

A trip to Las Vegas can mean enjoying the sights, gambling, and checking out different casinos, and people have access to some of the greatest restaurants in the U.S. within a several-mile radius of the Strip. If you're looking for the best fine dining in Las Vegas right now, it's worth taking a trip to MGM Grand's Restaurant de Joël Robuchon to experience the best of the best.

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