VEGAS RESTAURANT ROUNDUP: Caesars Ramsays Up for F1

Caesars Entertainment is bringing Gordon Ramsay and other celebrity chefs in for the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend on November 16-18.

“It is no secret that I am a huge F1 fan, and I have no doubt that Las Vegas will really take it to the next level for the inaugural race on the Strip,” Ramsay said in a Caesars statement.

Caesars isn’t stopping with Gordo, either. It’s also bringing in Nobu Matsuhisa himself to host a sushi-making demonstration at Nobu at Caesars Palace on November 17, and at Nobu at Paris Las Vegas the following day, for $500 a head.

On November 18, Giada De Laurentiis will host a $250-per-person trackside brunch at Giada at The Cromwell. And Lisa Vanderpump will rule a “Very Vanderpump Brunch” at Vanderpump à Paris inside Paris on November 17 for $250 a head.

Celebrity chefs can almost never be found at their own Vegas restaurants, as Casino.org’s own Vital Vegas blogger Scott Roeben has previously revealed. As part of their licensing deals, most are required to make only annual appearances at each restaurant for photo ops.

50 Best for the Wynn

Las Vegas will play host next year to “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants,” the annual, and arguable, ranking of the planet’s top dining destinations. Hundreds of chefs and restaurateurs will converge on Wynn Las Vegas for a conference, which runs from June 1 through the awards ceremony on June 5.

Dining Ins & Outs

The uber-popular Zippy’s has opened its first Las Vegas restaurant at 7095 Badura Ave., the fast-casual chain’s first outside Hawaii.

Texas-based Indian chain Desi Chowrastha will open its first Las Vegas restaurant across from Mandalay Bay early next year, according to whatnowvegas.com. The Strip location will seat 70-80 and have a liquor license.

The Caviar Bar at Resorts World has reopened as Aqua Seafood & Caviar.
Quintuple-Michelin-starred Australian chef Shaun Hergatt remains at the stove. Caviar Bar opened five months after the resort, in December 2021.

BabyStacks Café will open its eighth Las Vegas brunch restaurant at 500 S. Main St. downtown. That’s the current site of MTO Café, which was purchased by BabyStacks owner Liberty Hung in 2021. MTO is expected to close momentarily and reopen rebranded in early 2024.

Angie’s Lobster of Arizona, where it operates eight locations, is opening its first Las Vegas location at 4835 Blue Diamond Road, 6 miles south of the Strip.

Later this year, A Different Beast, a new concept from Kat Hu and Justin Yi, who ran LA’s now-shuttered Hock + Hoof, will move into the Chinatown vacancy left by Japanese tapas and wine bar Osaka Sunset.