Advocate for the fish he serves

By Brendan Buhler

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Celebrity chefs, Las Vegas has. What sets Rick Moonen apart, like an Alice Waters or a Nora Pouillon, is a passion for environmentally sensitive food. The New York Times has called him “a seafood chef of surpassing clarity and integrity who empathizes with his materials as if he himself belonged to the sea.”

In an industry of indulgence and in a city of excess, Moonen urges restraint.

At least in terms of fishing.

Personality-wise, Moonen is to restraint what Genghis Khan was to peaceful yurts and prolonged virginity.

Here is Moonen, describing the casual dining downstairs at his RM Seafood in Mandalay Bay:

“This lounge, it’s a sophisticated place. It’s the best sushi in Las Vegas. That’s a challenge. I defy anyone, anyone,” says Moonen, jabbing a finger toward heaven.

“You can talk to my purveyors. They’ll tell you. I’m nuts!” he shouts.

“About quality,” he clarifies.

And here is Moonen talking about how he could build “an indestructible community” in Las Vegas, a kind of food court like no other:

“I want to create a carnival where chefs create quality food. I’d do that. Who wouldn’t do that? I’m just throwing it out there, just thought it up, call it an exclusive for you. Ha! Ha-ha! We could do it at Town Square. Maybe I’d have a stall selling Moondoggies, hot dogs with shrimp. But sustainable! Good for the planet.”

Moonen talks with arms waving, face alight, clapping you on the shoulder and making sound effects — ka-pow!

“Don’t mind me,” he says. “What you’re getting, this is the world according to Rick Moonen.”

A native New Yorker, Moonen used to fish off Long Island with his dad. Moonen trained at the Culinary Institute of America before running Manhattan restaurants to three-star New York Times reviews.

Then one day 20 years ago, he was at some thing with the mayor and other chefs, on the steps of City Hall, and a radio reporter asked him what he thought about genetically engineered food. He didn’t know anything about it, but said nature was good enough for him and his kitchen. It played on news radio all day long. People started calling him. He figured he’d better learn something about the environment. He got involved in species-protection campaigns such as “Give Swordfish a Break” and “Caviar Emptor.” He spoke out against the mistreatment of cattle.

“I got huge, up to the point that there are pictures of me standing out there with guys dressed up as cows, dumping milk into the street,” Moonen says.

In 2005 he moved to Las Vegas and opened a restaurant with casual dining downstairs and fine dining upstairs. It was during the great fine-dining boom, and he was competing for staff with the newly opened Wynn.

“It was a scene straight out of ‘Blazing Saddles.’ I had a table out in the lobby. ‘Who are you? You speak English?’ ” Moonen slaps the table. “ ‘OK, you’re in.’ ”

But then the economy fell off a cliff. Last December, Moonen closed the upstairs part of his restaurant. It was losing $25 per customer.

Ah, but this is an opportunity, Moonen says. He’ll improve the upstairs, fix it, reopen it in the fall, make it world famous.

This is the time to do it.