LAS VEGAS -- Casino impresario Steve Wynn is changing the rules of the Las Vegas restaurant game, reversing a strategy of hiring celebrity chefs that has proved financially irresistible in this glitzy city.
Instead, the billionaire famous for his maverick casino designs that reinvigorated the Strip has courted serious talent willing to move to Las Vegas and work year-round in the kitchens of his new $2.7 billion megaresort that opens in April. By being on-site, they can guarantee the high quality of their cuisine.
It's a commitment the high-profile chefs he approached were unwilling to swallow.
"The fact that it is Wynn who's demanding it is significant because he is the biggest player out there and sets the standards," said food critic John Mariani of Esquire magazine. "It will cause the other casinos to up their own ante. How would it look to have a slew of restaurants with on-premises chefs at Wynn's place and the others have absentee chefs?"
Nine of the 19 restaurants and bars at Wynn Las Vegas will be chef-driven concepts, said Elizabeth Blau, Wynn's executive vice president of restaurant marketing and development.
Though the hires lack the same cachet as a Mario Batali, Alain Ducasse or Thomas Keller, they are impressive. The list includes Jimmy Sneed, Paul Bartolotta, Stephen Kalt, Eric Klein, Alex Stratta, Mark LoRusso and Takashi Yagihashi.
Daniel Boulud of New York City -- the lone celebrity chef on the list -- will operate a brasserie but will not live in Las Vegas, Blau said, adding the ninth chef has not been signed yet to run the Chinese restaurant.
The restaurants will run the food gamut, serving everything from high-end Japanese to Italian.
The chefs, with resumes peppered with accolades and praise, have each carved out a niche in the competitive world of pricey restaurants, which can sink faster than a souffle if not handled deftly. Several are winners of the prestigious James Beard award for culinary excellence and have been singled out as top chefs in Food & Wine magazine.
"They are very good, well-respected chefs among their peers," Mariani said. "Stratta is an ace in the hole."
Wynn redefined the dining scene in Las Vegas when he opened the Bellagio megaresort in 1998. He proved that high-end restaurants could flourish in casinos, and discerning (and not-so-discerning) tourists were willing to pay top dollar for black truffles, roasted pigeon and Burgundy snails.
Las Vegas Weekly restaurant editor Max Jacobson says the luxurious Bellagio, which Wynn sold to MGM Mirage in 2000, offers a top-quality dining experience.
"The Bellagio still sets very high standards," Jacobson said. "I defy you to find a hotel with more good restaurants than the Bellagio."
But the country's top foodies have been dismissive of the Bellagio and the celebrity chefs who opened restaurants there, penning words Wynn has not ignored.
Alan Richman, restaurant reviewer for GQ magazine, says those chefs are everywhere but in the kitchens of their overextended empires. Absentee chefs have tainted plenty of big name restaurants in this city, he says, including those at the Bellagio.
The Prime Steakhouse at the Bellagio, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's place, has fallen victim to this sour syndrome, Richman declared in a very public bloodletting. In the December issue of GQ, he skewered the steakhouse, targeting the famed foie gras brulee.
"The closest cousin to this dish can be found in regions where cannibalism continues to be practiced, because it's reminiscent of breaking through a skull and finding brain matter underneath," he wrote.
Mariani also carved up Las Vegas restaurants in a now-infamous industry newsletter, writing that the city was smoke and mirrors where diners only get the chef's name, not the talent.
In an interview, he again took aim at the Bellagio's knockoff restaurants.
"Many of the places, they were a shadow of the original and they had nothing of the soul, spirit or originalities of the originals," Mariani concluded.
After Wynn read Mariani's scathing indictment, Blau arranged for the two to have lunch. Wynn told Mariani things would be different this time.
"I do expect he's really going to deliver," Mariani said. "He really has to."
Richman is quick to credit Wynn for trying to keep chefs behind the stove.
"They've got to be in the kitchen for long days," he said. "They can't show up for an hour, yell at their staffs, stick their fingers in the stock, add the salt and leave for the night.
They have to put out food that is carefully prepared and recipes that really demonstrate the passion of the chef."
But he has concerns about the size of the restaurants and the people who will patronize them.
"You start getting past 100 seats and you're into more volume than most good places can handle," Richman said, adding "restaurants can only be as good as their customers."
Blau declined to discuss the restaurants' aesthetics or sizes, but said they were designed to create intimate and extraordinary experiences and were "scaled appropriately for the desired revenue."
In creating them, she followed a simple recipe: Build a beautiful restaurant with good access, acquire a great chef and hire a competent staff.
"They're only as good as the people answering the phones," she said.
Blau knows Wynn cannot afford to disappoint visitors or profit-hungry shareholders -- not with approximately $248 million of his first full-year revenues expected to come from food, beverage and banquets.
The stakes are high.
"When it doesn't work, you end up with incredible depression," Richman said. "There is nothing worse than the overhyped, overwrought and overpriced gone bad. It's worse to me than losing at blackjack. At least I expect to lose at blackjack."