Chef Kerry Simon dies at age 60

Kerry Simon used one of his own quotes to head his website, but it wasn't the exercise in ego that might be expected from a celebrity chef.

"I think," he quoted himself from 1993, "you have to be a little nuts to be a chef."

Simon — dubbed the "rock 'n' roll chef" by Rolling Stone magazine for the musical clientele at his restaurant in New York's Plaza Hotel in the '80s — died Friday in Nathan Adelson Hospice of multiple system atrophy, or MSA. He was 60.

Las Vegas publicist Laura Herlovich, who had known Simon since she helped launch Simon Kitchen & Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel in 2002, said his quote reflected his light-hearted approach to life, and food.

"Kerry loved what he did," she said Friday. "He loved people and he loved being happy and making people happy. He liked being just this side of center. I think that showed in his food and his personality."

Barry Dakake, executive chef of N9NE Steakhouse at the Palms, said he became friends with Simon after the latter opened Palms Place's Simon Restaurant and Lounge in 2008.

"I started to get to know him and understand who he was, what he represented — not only culinarily, but as an amazing human being," Dakake said. "He cared about everybody."

Herlovich, too, spoke of Simon's kindness.

"Kerry was a very talented chef," she said, "but he was truly a rock star human being. He had such a generous heart and generous verbiage; Kerry never said a bad word about anybody," to the point where if thought he'd said something unkind to her, he'd go to great lengths to apologize — even if, Herlovich said, the affront never occurred.

Simon's interest in food was born in a Chicago Little Caesars Pizza with a job he took while saving for an electric guitar as a teenager. He went on to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America and accept positions at a number of prominent restaurants in New York, working with several culinary lions. It was in New York where he met Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who became his mentor and friend.

Simon moved on to several positions in Europe and the Far East, eventually resettling in Miami. A reacquaintance with Vongerichten led to a position developing and opening restaurants in the U.S. and abroad, and eventually Las Vegas, where he opened Vongerichten's Prime Steakhouse at Bellagio in 1998. He later partnered with restaurant developer Elizabeth Blau in Simon Kitchen & Bar and a number of other ventures in Las Vegas and other cities.

His Simon Restaurant & Lounge at Palms Place became renowned for, among other things, its pajama brunch. Like Simon Kitchen, its specialties included elevated comfort and junk food, such as cotton candy — which evokes a memory for Herlovich.

"I think I am the best judge of cotton candy," she said. "He used to let me go into the kitchen and change the color of his cotton candy. It was just sweet of him. That's the kind of person Kerry was. He would've done that for anybody; it wasn't just me."

Dakake said Simon continued to dedicate himself to others even when he was fighting MSA, a degenerative disease. He remembers doing an event with Simon and fellow chef Rick Moonen in the summer of 2013, when Simon was clearly ill.

"He looked really weak, really fatigued," Dakake said.

Just before Christmas, Simon invited Dakake to participate in the KLUC toy drive.

"This Lexus pulls up," very close to the event, Dakake said. "This guy gets out." Dakake didn't recognize Simon because he had cut his trademark dark, shaggy hair. And because he was using a walker.

"That's the first day he announced that he had MSA," he said. "It was a sad day. To see him go and give back to the community when he had the fight of his life on his hands, it goes to show you what a great person he was. He was always giving and caring."

That continued as Simon helped fight the disease that was killing him. Some of the $525,000 raised at the Kerry Simon's Fight MSA event in February 2014 established the MSA Comprehensive Clinic at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and brought together more than 200 experts for a conference to craft an MSA Research Roadmap. Doctors, scientists and researchers identified the collaborations needed to move toward MSA treatments as fast as possible.

The conference led to the creation of the Global MSA Taskforce to foster the science to develop new treatments more efficiently, and several new scientific collaborations began to work toward accelerating the understanding of the cause and search for a cure for MSA.

"It was an honor to battle alongside Kerry Simon in his fight against MSA," Dr. Ryan R. Walsh said in a statement released Friday. "While he leaves a well-known legacy as an Iron Chef, a rock 'n' roll chef and one of Las Vegas' culinary founders, we at the Cleveland Clinic will remember him as a hero whose courage in the final fight of his life, against MSA, has inspired research and innovation that will live on." Walsh is the Lee Pascal Parkinson's Disease Scholar and Director of the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Program at the Ruvo Center.

Herlovich said Simon's willingness to be the face of MSA also spoke to his nature.

"Nobody would have allowed themselves to be that person that Kerry did, which just showed what a generous spirit and heart he had," she said.

Blau and former Palms casino owner George Maloof, both of whom were close to Simon, released statements Friday.

"You're never prepared for something like this," Blau said. "We're devastated that we lost such an amazing and kind man, but know he is in a better place. Our focus now is to continue this fight against MSA in Kerry's honor."

Said Maloof: "Kerry Simon was a masterful chef, he was full of enthusiasm for the world, he was a fighter, but more than that, Kerry was a wonderful human being — and he was my friend. Today my heart is heavy, but there is comfort in knowing that his personal battle is over, that he is at peace and that his spirit will live on through his restaurants and the work being done to fight MSA in his name at the Cleveland Clinic. May we all move forward in his honor carrying just a little piece of his energy, his passion and his love of life."

"The city lost a great person today," Dakake said. "The world lost a great person."

Services are pending.

Review-Journal staff writers Steven Moore and Cassandra Taloma contributed to this report. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at www.reviewjournal.com and bestoflasvegas.com and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.