In recent years, Las Vegas has become a celebrity mecca, a place where you're just as likely to find a Hollywood star as, well, Hollywood. For better or worse, this phenomenon applies to dining out, as well. You may see that star at the next table over, but you're just as likely to encounter a celebrity should you visit the kitchen. Maybe.
You may know them from a cooking show on TV. You might know them by their reputation or one of their cookbooks. No matter how you recognize them, celebrity chefs are all over the place, especially in Las Vegas. You know the names: Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, and coming soon to Caesars Palace, Mario Batali and Guy Savoy.
But who's really back there cooking? Surely, not even the most naive tourist thinks a peek into the kitchen at Spago would reveal Puck preparing a portabella pizza. No, the truth is some restaurants are selling that name as much as a meal.
Officials from the Emeril empire assure us that Lagasse -- he of the perpetual "Bam!" catch phrase -- is constantly in touch with his Las Vegas lieutenants, namely executive chefs Jean Paul Labadie at Emeril's New Orleans Fish House and Dana D'Anzi at Delmonico Steakhouse. But the big guy does come to town when he can for events, such as his Carnivale du Vin fundraiser, held in October.
Keep in mind that the term "executive chef" generally refers to the person who designs the menu. Others who may be called assistants or sous chefs or chefs de cuisine are actually in the kitchen making sure you get a plate that looks like what the celebrity chef had in mind.
Roy Yamaguchi, the Tokyo-born master chef often credited with igniting the trend of Hawaiian fusion cuisine, isn't a permanent fixture at either of the valley's two Roy's locations (there are Roy's restaurants all over Hawaii, California, Arizona, Texas and Florida). But he, too, has been known to visit his Vegas kitchens for special dining events.
Some chefs aren't interested in celebrity status. At least one is a little concerned with it.
"The perception for a lot of people that are going to culinary schools these days is that there is an opportunity to become a celebrity," said Rick Moonen, chef/owner of restaurant rm and r bar cafe, who was already well known for his New York seafood restaurants before he came to Mandalay Bay last year. "When I went to school, you went because you wanted to work in a fine dining establishment," Moonen said. "It worries me that the classical roots of cuisine have become diluted because of sensationalism, and it's difficult to pull serious cuisiniers into Vegas if people think they can come in and work here for a few years and put it on their resume, and next year they'll have a TV show."
Moonen's not the only one focused on the food. France's "Chef of the Century" Joel Robuchon is indeed involved as executive chef of two restaurants at MGM Grand, Joel Robuchon at The Mansion and the slightly less ritzy L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. And at Bradley Ogden inside Caesars, if the namesake chef, a frequent "Good Morning, America" guest, isn't calling the shots in the kitchen, his son and co-executive chef Bryan Ogden is doing so, along with assistant chef Dave Varley. No wonder the restaurant has been hailed as one of the city's best since it opened in 2004.
So maybe we should forget the name on the package, even it's all over TV, bookstores and cookware lines, and the package is a big, beautiful restaurant on the Strip. It's what's on the plate that counts.
Brock Radke's food column appears twice monthly. Contact him at bradke@viewnews.com.
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