VEGAS DINING ROUNDUP: José Andrés Taking Bazaar Meat to Venetian

José Andrés is relocating his Bazaar Meat from the Sahara, where his chefs have been searing Las Vegas’ best steaks for a decade, to the Palazzo Tower at the Venetian.

Actually, that’s not true. Bazaar Meat never opened at the Sahara — not intentionally anyway. It opened in 2014 along with the SLS Las Vegas, a failed experiment in transforming the Sahara into an upscale Beverly Hills concept.

Andrés himself is an upscale Beverly Hills concept. His Jaleo, China Poblano and é by José Andrés at the Cosmopolitan, Zaytinya at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, and newly opened Bazaar Mar at the Shops at Crystals are all very highly rated (and very expensive) eateries that don’t cater to the Olive Garden crowd.

So when SLS unbranded back into the plain old Sahara in 2019, it stranded Bazaar Meat in a bizarre situation.

Wednesday’s news comes five months after Casino.org’s own Vital Vegas blogger Scott Roeben was first to report that Bazaar Meat would close.

The Sahara and the José Andrés Group were quick to fire off a joint denial, insisting that Roeben was wrong and that there were “no plans to close Bazaar Meat.”

In the end, though, he wasn’t wrong. It’s just that, when you’re the very first to report a rumor from a reliable source, the entire story sometimes isn’t written yet. (Back in May, Andrés probably didn’t have his Venetian deal in place yet.)

Meantime, the Sahara issued its own new announcement Wednesday, announcing that it has nothing to announce other than that Bazaar Meat’s Sahara location would “remain open into 2025” and that it “will be announcing a top-tier destination restaurant to take the place of Bazaar Meat when it closes next year.”

We look forward to Vital Vegas breaking that news before it’s announced as well.

Dining Ins & Outs

The North Italia ristorante chain will open a second Las Vegas location at Henderson’s District at Green Valley Ranch on Nov. 13. It already operates across town in Summerlin.

Chef Antonio Nuñez is opening a third Las Vegas location for The Parlour. It is set to debut Oct. 22 in the Henderson space previously occupied by The Kitchen, which closed in May after nearly a decade. The small chain also operates downtown and on East Flamingo Road.