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Chef Martin Yan, star of PBS cooking show, opens 1st Las Vegas restaurant

Las Vegas diners will finally taste how Yan can cook.

Martin Yan, the star TV chef, Emmy winner, James Beard Award winner (several), restaurateur, cookbook author, culinary mentor, global ambassador for Asian cooking (especially Chinese), and the carver of chickens in 18 seconds (with cleaver), is opening his first Las Vegas restaurant.

M.Y. Asia is set to debut March 13 in the newly rebranded Horseshoe Las Vegas. The Review-Journal reported on the restaurant last May after an exclusive lunch discussion with the chef.

As he shared at lunch, the menu ranges across the continent: kimchi, shrimp lettuce cups, a dim sum sampler, Thai yellow coconut curry chicken, mu shu pork tacos, Chilean sea bass marinated in jasmine tea, sizzling black pepper steak. The menu, informed by Yan’s extensive travels, showcases dishes “in an exciting, entertaining and nourishing way,” the chef said.

The Lucky Bell Bar, a Yan signature, with a lounge-y mood on the weekends, features creative cocktails like a Kasama Mama (rum, ginger liqueur, fresh lime, orgeat syrup), an M.Y. Paloma (tequila, yuzu liqueur, fresh lime sour, sparkling pink grapefruit), and the Lychee in Paradise (vodka, elderflower liqueur, fresh lemon juice, lychee juice, Chandon Brut).

The chef brings his celebrated “Yan-tertainment” to the 5,300-square-foot restaurant that encompasses 150 seats, an open kitchen with noodle-pulling demonstrations, a noodle bar, a retail area with Yan merchandise, and warming food lockers from which diners pick up on-the-go meals after ordering and paying.

The restaurant also offers nightly changing-face performances, a traditional Chinese art in which dancers make seemingly instantaneous changes of mask.

M.Y. Asia was created in partnership with ATM Hospitality. Hours will be 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 11 to 1 a.m. Fridays through Sundays. Visit myasialv.com and follow @myasialv on Instagram and Facebook.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ItsJLW on Twitter.

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