‘Top Chef’ stars eye permanent spot in Las Vegas
Viva Las Voltaggio! How does that sound?
To Michael and Bryan Voltaggio — brothers, chefs, restaurateurs and “Top Chef” stars — it sounds pretty good.
“We would love nothing more than to have a restaurant one day in Las Vegas,” Michael Voltaggio said Wednesday morning during a quick chat with the Review-Journal.
The night before, the brothers had cooked late for the opening dinner of Voltaggio at Bellagio, their residency (through Sept. 10) at the property’s Harvest restaurant (bit.ly/HarvestBellagio for required reservations). It’s a return engagement for the brothers, their second residency at Bellagio, and once again, they’re preparing what are billed as Italian American classics, with a twist.
But that simple description, and the almost equally unfussy menu descriptions, belie the creativity that’s immediately apparent when the dishes on the residency menu (nearly two dozen in all) touch down and are tasted.
Anchovy bruschetta? Got it. But what arrives are four fillets nestled in a fiery orange pool of Calabrian chili butter, with fennel pollen grace notes. Peas and eggs? That’s a traditional dish in which eggs are poached atop a simmering pan of fresh peas and onions. In the hands of the Voltaggios, tradition is reimagined as a communion of potato gnocchi, sugar snap peas and pea sprouts, egg yolk and ricotta salata.
Banana polenta — whoever would have thought of that flavoring? — accompanies the branzino. Osso buco isn’t osso buco at all, at least not by standard reckoning, with beef cheeks instead of veal, and a risotto fashioned from sunflower seeds.
“Under-author, over-deliver,” Bryan Voltaggio said of the brothers’ approach to menu writing that deliberately leaves room for the surprise of the dish, the unexpected.
What’s ahead for the chefs? They’ve got a new restaurant coming to the Village at Mammoth, in Mammoth, California, and an Italian steakhouse planned to debut in Chicago in the first quarter of 2023. And Vegas? It will be here when they’re ready.
Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ItsJLW on Twitter.
