Las Vegas Outserves New York because the Prime Steakhouse Metropolis

As I amble by way of The Venetian Las Vegas lodge and on line casino complicated, I attempt to block out the cacophony of pretend Venetian gondoliers belting out, “Oh Solo Mio” towards beeps and boops of slot machines within the distance. After which I’m struck by one thing: that each 200 toes or so, I stroll by a steakhouse. And never simply any generic sanctuary of steak however spots with boldface names scrawled throughout them, like José Andrés, Emeril Lagasse, and Wolfgang Puck. It turns on the market are six steakhouses ensconced inside The Venetian. At first it looks like beef overkill to me. However as I discover the remainder of Las Vegas, I understand the close to ubiquity of steakhouses right here will not be an anomaly. 

I’ve all the time thought of New York Metropolis, with its bevy of century-old basilicas of bovine meat, to be the steakhouse capital of the nation. Perhaps even the planet. However in Las Vegas, you’ll be able to’t toss a ribeye bone with out hitting an indication saying prime roasted beef may very well be consumed there.

Living proof: Each cities have at the least 100 steakhouses, however Las Vegas has a inhabitants of 650,000 individuals and 40 million guests every year to New York Metropolis’s 8.5 million denizens and 65 million annual guests.

If I had any doubt concerning the reply to the age-old query, “the place’s the meat?” I now know the place to seek out it: Las Vegas is the place to blow a couple of hundred bucks to tuck right into a scorching porterhouse or a thick tomahawk whereas sipping on a grimy Martini or a full-bodied Rioja. However I’m not happy with stopping there.

Steakhouses originated in London as taverns for the working class. In the US, they started showing within the nineteenth century, additionally catering to a blue collar clientele. By the Nineteen Seventies, the stalwarts of steak had grow to be an emblem of outdated, passe eating. However as of late, steakhouses are booming. It seems, we’re all at the moment residing by way of a golden age of the steakhouse.

And so, I wished to see how these eating places advanced from working-class hangouts to symbols of extravagance, and why Las Vegas is especially primed for pairing up with these meat meccas. 

Traditional steakhouses in Las Vegas

I start at Golden Steer, the oldest steakhouse in Las Vegas (it opened in 1958), and reportedly a hang-out for iconic figures like Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Nat King Cole. Golden Steer is old-school Vegas to the core. I sit on the bar, my face illuminated by the ever present slot machines constructed into the counter, nursing a grimy Martini. 

Las Vegas’ steakhouse roots, says Amanda Signorelli, co-owner of Golden Steer, “goes again to our basis as a cowboy outpost within the desert. What actually cemented steakhouses as central to our tradition is how this metropolis advanced right into a vacation spot for abundance and celebration.”

I look across the room on the Golden Steer, witnessing precisely that: Diners dig gooey marrow out of bones the dimensions of dinosaur femurs whereas others lower into thick hunks of beef, and waiters toss Caesar salads tableside. Golden Steer is reversing the development of New York Metropolis eating places opening up outposts in Las Vegas by exporting their very own restaurant to the Huge Apple: In late fall 2025, the steakhouse will fireplace up its burners in Greenwich Village.

The classics of Las Vegas are usually not going to problem your expectations of what a steakhouse can do. They’re usually homegrown eating places positioned off the Strip. Some standout examples embody Oscar’s Steakhouse, named for former Las Vegas mayor, Oscar Goodman, in Downtown Las Vegas and Hugo’s Cellar, additionally downtown, the place the old-school vibe begins with the restaurant’s web site that appears prefer it hasn’t been up to date because the late Nineties. The one geographical exception, nonetheless, is the The Steak Home at Circus Circus. The darkish wooden and hunter inexperienced partitions with pink tufted leather-based cubicles set the tone for a basic steak expertise, as tuxedo-clad waiters march by way of the eating room delivering medium-rare rib-eyes and porterhouses.

“Steakhouses date to the earliest days of Las Vegas hospitality, when what would grow to be the Strip started rising within the early Forties,” says Johnathan Wright, restaurant critic for the Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal. “Beef had lengthy been a meals of celebration and luxurious, and steakhouses, with their extensive attraction, added to the visitor expertise at lodges and casinos. Because the tradition of eating, leisure and gaming grew in Vegas, steakhouses turned extra lavish, in addition to a option to reward essential gamers with comped foods and drinks, a observe that continues at this time. The historical past of the steakhouse in Vegas is entwined with showroom eating and eating has all the time been leisure in Vegas, and that features steakhouses.”

“An amazing steakhouse dinner has grow to be a timeless expertise in Las Vegas,” says Kate Wik, CMO of the Las Vegas Conference and Guests Authority. For many years steakhouses have been woven into the material of Las Vegas historical past and tradition. At present, prime cooks from all over the world proceed that custom, drawn to Las Vegas as a spot to push boundaries, entertain visitors from each nook of the globe, and ship all of it with that unmistakable Vegas aptitude — from the long-lasting Golden Steer to fashionable standouts like PRIME at Bellagio, Peter Luger Steak Home at Caesars Palace, SW Steakhouse at Wynn, and Barry’s Downtown Prime at Circa Resort.” 

Lavish and fashionable Las Vegas steakhouses

Lagasse introduced a sprinkling of New Orleans to Las Vegas when he opened Delmonico Steakhouse in 1999 in The Venetian. Housed in a lush high-ceilinged room amid a capability gaggle of diners feasting on pink meat, I feast my means by way of a house-aged, bone-in rib-eye and marvel how a steakhouse in such a beef-heavy city manages to remain open for 1 / 4 of a century. 

After I ask Lagasse, he boils it right down to not resting on one’s laurels: “I believe a giant driving pressure behind our success is that we by no means cease evolving, we’re all the time striving to be higher than the day earlier than,” he says. “We honor the good American steakhouse, however we do it our means with a particular nod to New Orleans. Huge flavors, heat hospitality, and actual care for each visitor, that’s what units us aside.”

The identical is likely to be mentioned for the venerable Brooklyn beef establishment Peter Luger Steak Home. It revealed a severe Vegas glow-up when it opened in Caesars Palace in late 2023, making exhausting strides to create a basic steakhouse vibe with hardwood flooring, excessive vaulted ceilings, brick archways, and bronze chandeliers. The menu isn’t a lot totally different from the unique in Brooklyn — and that’s the purpose — however the high-roller environment is. 

“We have gone by way of extraordinary pains to make it possible for the Vegas restaurant is true to the unique,” says Daniel Turtel, Peter Luger’s vice chairman. “We’re getting older on-site with the identical beef and even the identical micro organism and mildew because the meatbox in Brooklyn. We have been utilizing beef tallow in our fryers since earlier than it was fashionable, and can preserve doing so lengthy after the following development provides beef tallow the boot.” 

The brand new guard

There’s a brand new batch of steak-serving eating places in Las Vegas and so they mirror the present growth in beef-centric eating, usually mixing a basic American steakhouse vibe with an outdoor culinary factor to it. Bazaar Meat by José Andrés, for instance, brings an Iberian zing to the restaurant: alongside basic cuts of beef, you can even graze on jamón ibérico, suckling pig, and “vaca vieja,” or “outdated cow,” representing the Spanish observe of consuming older cows which are much less tender however way more flavorful. From Spain to Korea, Cote, an import from New York Metropolis, lately opened its doorways, serving Korean-accented steak.

The newest steakhouse to open in Las Vegas is Boa, a few 10-minute stroll from Delmonico and Bazaar Meat. Boa is the quintessential Las Vegas steakhouse of the 2020s, with a contemporary design that deliberately separates it from the classics. The menu does, too. Right here you’ll be able to feast on an infinite 15-day dry-aged tomahawk,  variations on the theme of A5 wagyu, and prettied up signature dishes — like caviar cones, wagyu cigars, and lamb lollipops — that may attraction to social media-loving diners.

In Eric Wareheim’s just-released ebook, Steak Home, he waxes on about why he loves the environment of a steakhouse, likening it to a giant, comforting hug, “The wizardry of a great steakhouse is that you simply get that hug with out even having anybody’s arms wrapped round you. It’s a vibe hug and it’s intoxicating.”

After 5 days of consuming at steakhouses, I exit Las Vegas feeling like I’ve simply been given tons of of hugs.