Few Las Vegas tourists would blink twice at the menu prices if it was a fancy Italian, Japanese or steakhouse, and this Mediterranean fare is just as elevated any of those cuisines can be. It is fine dining, it is delicious, and it is expensive - some say overpriced - but to me you get what you pay for, top shelf quality. Even the non-seafood fare, such as the signature tower of paper-thin fried eggplant and zucchini chips with tzatziki sauce, are stunners. The focus on using the very best ingredients runs throughout, all the way down to the olive oil and even the Aegean sea salt. Waiters walk customers from their tables up to the display, lead them through the choices while describing taste and preparation options, and this is one of the world’s great seafood programs, with whole fish and shellfish flown in from all over the world, especially the Mediterranean, variety and freshness you just won’t get elsewhere. The Milos “concept” is centered around a “fish market,” a showpiece giant ice filled counter piled high with a drop-dead selection of amazing fresh fish. The Venetian Resort Las Vegas/KeyLimePhoto The seafood at Estiatorio Milos is mind blowing - this is grilled Loup de Mer. I toured the English Hotel (which is part of Marriott’s funky, indie Tribute portfolio brand - and notably one of the very few places in Las Vegas where you can use Bonvoy points, the world’s largest hotel frequent stay program), and it is very cool and has an excellent restaurant that has quickly become a local favorite, The Pepper Club by Todd English. His once burgeoning restaurant empire, which even reached the high seas on cruise ships, shrank considerably, but after some lean times out of the spotlight, he is currently staging a culinary revival and even has a new namesake boutique hotel in the Arts District near Old Downton Las Vegas. James Beard Rising Chef, James Beard Best Chef and Bon Appetit Restaurateur of the Year winner Todd English was the man behind the beloved modern Mediterranean classic, and I was at the Bellagio grand opening, got to know English a little bit, and always loved his cooking. Ironically, the prime “lakefront” location Spago now enjoys was previously Olives, the only notable Boston import in Las Vegas, one of the core celebrity-chef restaurants that debuted with the 1998 opening of the Bellagio, the first Las Vegas mega-resort to be built around food from the ground up. Puck himself currently has four other Vegas eateries in addition to Spago, and several others that have come and gone in the three decades in between. Puck’s instincts were right, and the pundits were wrong, and his smash hit kickstarted a tidal wave of famous restaurants and famous chef satellites in Sin City: Le Cirque, Olives, Rao’s, Carbone, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Emeril Lagasse, Thomas Keller, Michael Mina, Michael Symon, Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay, Nobu Matsuhisa, and a bevy of 3-Michelin Star French superstars like Joel Robuchon, Alain Ducasse, Guy Savoy and Pierre Gagnaire. In 1992, despite the pundits’ belief that “nobody goes to Vegas to eat,” he opened the second branch of his game changing Los Angeles restaurant, Spago, on the Las Vegas Strip in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. It was 30 years ago when Wolfgang Puck, generally credited as being the first “celebrity chef,” changed dining history in this country. but the standout Greek restaurant moved from the Cosmopolitan to the Venetian. The "Fish Market" at Estiatorio Milos is the backbone of one of the world's best seafood programs.
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