Town Square bringing new restaurants as well as some old favorites to location

If you were wondering when the next wave of restaurants would hit Las Vegas, wonder no more. Town Square is bringing 13 new dining spots to its 100-acre site on Las Vegas Boulevard South.

But not all at once. Louis's Las Vegas, Louis's Fish Camp and the Claim Jumper were ready in time for the grand opening on Wednesday. The other openings will take place gradually during the next few months.

Vicki Rousseau, director of marketing for Town Square, noted that while most of the restaurants are members of chain operations, only two -- Claim Jumper and California Pizza Kitchen -- already are represented in Las Vegas. She said the restaurant mix is designed as a "secondary anchor" -- a destination in itself -- for what is expected to be a mostly local clientele.

"We're always looking for new restaurants to go to," she said of locals as a group.

And two new ones are ready for locals. Louis's Las Vegas and Louis's Fish Camp are based in Pawleys Island, S.C., and specialize in Carolina Low-Country cooking. Since chef/owner Lewis Osteen established a beachhead on the island in 1980 he's been racking up the plaudits, including a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southeast in 2004.

So why is he bringing the Low Country to Las Vegas?

"Well, I've been coming out here off and on for a long time," Osteen said in what can only be described as a drawl. "Finally, it worked out.

"My wife said, 'You know, Louis, I've known all my life that you're crazy. And this will actually be proof.' I said, 'Yeah, you're probably right, but what the hell; it'll be fun.' "

Osteen said the Low Country is the coastal region of South Carolina, a state-defined geographical area.

"Low-County cuisine is made up, like all regional cuisines, of those products that grow there or are harvested there, and the cuisine develops from the culture that did the cooking," he said.

An example is a classic dish of the region, she-crab soup. Charleston was an English colony, Osteen said, and the soup is basically an English cream soup made with she-crabs and garnished with their roe.

"That technique from England, using local Charleston ingredients," he said. "That's how a regional cuisine develops."

Executive chef/partner Carlos Guia, former executive chef at Commander's Palace Las Vegas, said the cuisine is similar to Creole/Cajun in that "they're both very flavorful," but that Low Country has more pork products and less spiciness. Many of the food products are being brought in from the South, Guia said, including bacon, country ham and even country ham prosciutto, produced by smokehouses in Tennessee and North Carolina. Charleston pickled shrimp is also on what Guia said is a fairly large menu, and one that continues to evolve.

"We have our suppliers that we've been dealing with for years," Osteen said. "They're all excited about helping us and being a part of it," including "fish people who have not shipped this far before who we hope will be able to." The fish, he said, will include such regional favorites as grouper, sea trout, black bass and shrimp and scallops.

"We know it'll translate beautifully," he said. "How will people like it; that's the biggest question. It's really good food. I think people are gonna love it."

Town Square will house the third Las Vegas-area location of the Claim Jumper, which is based in Irvine, Calif.

"We think it'll be a great complement to the other restaurants in Summerlin and Henderson," said Larry Bill, director of community and public relations. "It will be a draw for both residents and tourists."

Bill said that as part of the grand-opening celebration, the Town Square Claim Jumper will donate 100 percent of opening-weekend sales of its signature Six Layer Chocolate Motherlode Cake to the Nevada Children's Cancer Foundation.

Louis's Fish Camp, the third restaurant that opened this week, is a more casual, high-energy version of Louis's Las Vegas. Guia said it will have live music on weekends.

"Chef Louis is big into his Southern music and we'll be featuring that," he said. There also will be a bourbon bar, with a huge selection of small-batch bourbons.

"The South has given this country a lot of things," Osteen said. "All of its original music, lots and lots of people of letters -- authors and writers and people of that stripe -- its juiciest food, the best food.

"And some awfully interesting politics."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0474.