Friday, January 24, 2003 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Vegas Institution

Pietro's provides a blast from the past with elegant, affordable dining

Pietro Musetto holds court at his eponymous restaurant at the Tropicana. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett.

Considering the relative importance of first impressions, Pietro's wasn't exactly on a roll as we started our dinner. The bread -- a white loaf we'd call French were it not for the too-soft crust -- was stale. And the little crock of butter that accompanied it was sufficiently soft but tasted as though it had spent too many hours in the fridge, unprotected from the negative influences of the strongly flavored bad boys in there.

At the same time, service from our tuxedoed (if none too friendly) server was efficient, low-key and pretty well flawless, and there were lots of nice little touches. She brought a small doily-topped plate, for example, for the wine cork and foil. Our bottle of wine was placed in a napkin-lined basket, from which she poured the wine. Music and candlelight were soft, silver and crystal sparkling, linens used in great profusion.

Would this be a case of style over substance?

One spoonful of the lobster bisque ($6.50) answered the question. I'm a fan of good lobster bisque, and I haven't sampled any in town that equaled the best ones I've had in the past. So imagine my delight in this warming, creamy, wonderfully rich bowl, topped with a prodigious number of nice-sized chunks of succulent lobster. With just a touch more sherry, it would be perfection itself.

As I sipped and reveled in my bisque, I gazed around, noting the high level of activity in the relatively small room. Pietro's doesn't look like a piece of old Vegas; with its window shutters and light colors, it's more in keeping with current ideas about restaurant decor, particularly cafes. But rest assured, this is old Vegas at its best.

There's Pietro himself, for example. Like most of the rest of you I've spent much of my life someplace else, so I didn't know that Pietro Musetto -- more casual than his waiters with his long apron -- is a longtime Las Vegas institution, late of the Dunes and more recently of several restaurants at the Tropicana. He's built quite a following, as evidenced by the proportion of people in the room who were clearly regulars.

And why? At least partly because of all of that activity, which comes about because of a lot of tableside-prepared dishes is a throwback, to be sure, but a charming one. The current prevailing school of thought is that most dishes are best prepared in the kitchen, where the chef has more control, and there's certainly a lot of merit in that. But there's also something very charming (if, OK, a little pretentious) about somebody preparing your food as you watch.

And that was the case with the Steak Diane ($32.75), prepared not by Pietro but by a tuxedoed waiter. This dish -- perhaps the quintessential tableside-prepared dish -- was based on tender beef, cooked just enough and blanketed by a thickish sauce studded with mushrooms and redolent of Dijon mustard and shallots. All of the flavor notes were most complementary; this was a very successful dish.

The Crespelle Flambe au Cointreau ($7.50) was prepared tableside by the same waiter, whose ease at working with all of those flaming liquids was truly impressive. So was the crepe, which was suitably delicate but -- most impressive of all -- filled with a generous amount of orange-imbued pastry cream, an old-fashioned delight that has fallen out of flavor somewhat but deserves to be revived.

Another thing that's fallen out of favor: capon -- served in this case as breast of capon Kiev ($25.50), so that, heck, you get two wonderful things that seldom appear on restaurant menus these days. The breast was as big as I expected and much more juicy, and when knife was applied it yielded a burst of herb-flavored butter, just as it should. It was served with a veritable mountain of wild rice -- and yes, this was the real thing -- and an array of grilled vegetables. (So when noting that entrees at Pietro's are served a la carte, note as well that while you won't get a salad unless you order one, you certainly will be served a lot more than a piece of meat, as you are in so many places.)

Besides, you might want to try the mussels marinara ($10.50), which were tiny and tender and (except for a few that were on the strong side) sweetly reminiscent of the sea.

Let's note, for a moment, the prices at Pietro's. With appetizer prices even at some not-that-upscale places at or near the $20 range (like the $15 bowl of tomato soup I recently saw on a menu), it's definitely refreshing to see Pietro's menu priced at about half that. The wine list had a great variety that included some lower-priced vintages, and there was no bottled-water nonsense; while we felt sure it was there if we wanted it, it wasn't thrust upon us.

Indeed, not much was thrust upon us at Pietro's; the service style is low-key and genteel. The only unwelcome intrusion was the cigarette smoke that drifted over from another table. Yes, some Las Vegans seem determined to cling to their cancer sticks until their dying days, but in such a small room -- and considering that there was only the one man smoking at the time we were there -- a clean-air policy might actually curry some favor.

Not everything about old Vegas is as charming as we remember.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are unannounced and done anonymously at Review-Journal expense.