Silk Road next hotspot for local power lunches?
Review-Journal business writers Jennifer Robison and Howard Stutz took on the persona of Review-Journal food critic Heidi Knapp Rinella for a day. They decided to test out lunch at the Silk Road restaurant inside Vdara a week after it opened.
Apparently, a few notables had a similar idea.
Could Vdara's Silk Road be shaping up as one of the next hotspots for local power lunches?
Silk Road, created by chef Martin Heierling, who developed Bellagio's Sensi restaurant, is Vdara’s signature restaurant. It wasn't full at lunch -- perhaps half the tables were taken by about 1.
But among some of those guests were high-profile business people that help make major deals and analyze the city's economy for Wall Street investors.
At one table sat the partners of financial consultant-gaming analysis firm Union Gaming Group – Bill Lerner, Grant Govertsen and Rich Moriarty – having lunch with gaming attorneys Tony Cabot and Greg Giordano of the firm Lewis & Rocca.
Later, in walked part-time attorney and full-time food critic John Curtas, who oversees the eatinglv.com website. Curtas, who was sampling various menu items, said he also was headed over to Twist inside Mandarin Oriental later that night for dinner.
And then there were the smaller, more random conversations we overheard that shed some interesting light on the Las Vegas economy, such as the condominium salesperson that told his dining partner that sales representatives at CityCenter's Veer were running into banks uninterested in lending to homebuyers who want to purchase vacation properties.
The people-watching was interesting as well. With Aria in its finishing stages, a steady stream of construction workers mingled with lookie-loo tourists, and a constant parade of taxi cabs dropped off and picked up guests. We also spotted an MGM Mirage spokesman giving a media tour to a videographer and reporter.
We'll leave the serious food-critiquing to Heidi, but we will say we were surprisingly full after a few small plates that included a couple of mini-hamburgers, ahi tuna bites, tater tots with a tomato marmalade and spiced fries with mint yogurt sauce and a chocolate mousse with caramel (total tab: about $57, pre-tip).
