Even in Vegas, chain restaurants hold charm

By Mike Trask

Monday, June 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The likes of Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse dominate the magazine covers and gossip columns as rock stars of the cooking world.

Judging by various “best of” restaurant lists, however, Las Vegans apparently would rather have a waitress in a crisp white shirt deliver the $5.99 all-you-can-eat salad and breadsticks than shell out big bucks for a culinary extravaganza.

The biggest — and best-known — “best of” list comes courtesy of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which polled nearly 8,000 people this year to get the Readers’ Picks on all things Vegas.

One finding perhaps tells you all you need to know about the survey. The best Italian restaurant in Las Vegas, at least according to the masses, is — drum roll please — Olive Garden.

Search “chain restaurants” on Google and it asks whether you meant to search “Olive Garden.”

The love affair some people have with the “when you’re here you’re family” chain elicits rolled eyes from food critics who spend careers searching for such things as the perfect cold Senegalese soup and grilled foie gras. Yet chains are comforting places, much like the sweat pants and baseball hat you can wear inside them — even in a city like Las Vegas, increasingly hailed by glossy magazines as a dining destination, a top-three food city in the country right up there with New York and San Francisco.

It’s our food and entertainment, some of it at least — and of course the gambling — that distinguish us from the rest of America in the eyes of the tens of millions of people who visit each year.

In lots of places, Olive Garden and Red Lobster are about as good as your dining options are going to get. But this isn’t Topeka.

Here you can enjoy a 16-course meal at Joel Robuchon’s restaurant in the MGM Grand — for $360 not including drinks. Carnevino in Palazzo offers a Florentine porterhouse. It does serve two, for $145.

But the folks living here would just as soon have a Bloomin’ Onion — proving our common sense if not our refined culinary leanings.

The Review-Journal survey gives the “best of” moniker to whichever establishment the most people pick — making it more of a “most meals served” award than an indication of the “best.” The newspaper also does a staff picks award, given to restaurants with critical acclaim.

In contrast, the Zagat guide, which rates restaurants across the country, asks diners to judge meals. If only a small number of people polled had dined at a high-end place and all gave it good grades, the restaurant would make the “tops in Las Vegas” lists.

The local awards are like asking someone who has driven only a Kia to rate the best car. Sure, there might be a Ferrari dealership up the street, but not too many Kia drivers are taking Testarossas for test drives.

Thus, the best steakhouse in town according to the locals? Outback. Red Lobster, a longtime punch line among food elitists, took the title in the seafood category. Applebee’s won best family restaurant.

None of those favorites made a list of the nation’s 100 highest-grossing restaurants. Twenty-four places in Las Vegas did, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine, with Tao at the Venetian ranking No. 1 last year.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority bills the city as “a global food Mecca.”

But eating at Tao isn’t an option for a family of four facing harsh economic times. Zagat ratings show Las Vegas is the most expensive place in the country to sit down for a dinner — an average of $44.44 per person. While that figure is skewed by the three- and four-digit tabs on the Strip, $44 will get you a dinner out each week for the next month at some modestly priced chains.

Yet breaking a $50 bill for dinner is nothing compared with Vegas’ high-end eating choices, some of which set outrageously new standards for conspicuous consumption. The Palms, for example, famously offers a $6 Carl’s Jr. burger with a 24-year-old bottle of French Bordeaux for $6,000. Burgers that will set you back a Benjamin or more can be found at other Strip restaurants.

Obviously that’s not going to be a favorite of the locals — especially those earning near the $53,700 median household income. They’ll take a $3.99 burger at In-N-Out with a fountain soda, thank you. In-N-Out took the “best hamburger” award in both the Review-Journal survey and the Reader’s Choice poll by Las Vegas Weekly, owned by the Greenspun family, publisher of the Sun.

Weekly readers extended the olive branch to some local joints. Yet the “best Wi-Fi hangout” still went to uberchain Starbucks.

The zest for the known spans almost all food genres. P.F. Chang’s has the best Asian food in the valley, at least according to the 7,982 readers who answered the Review-Journal’s online survey and preferred it to an authentic Chinatown eatery.

And the chains, after all, really aren’t so bad.

The New York Times sent a few food critics on a tour of the chains last month. The verdict: “surprisingly decent.”

That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement and the highbrow critics got their kicks poking fun at the flashing coasters used to alert customers when their table is ready. Still it’s better than might be expected. One critic even complimented the Olive Garden as “a contender” for best Italian.

Plus, who cares what the critics think?

These are the same type of people who swear Radiohead is the greatest band ever, even if the vocalists from “American Idol” are downloaded by far more people.

We like comfort and security, knowing what we’re going to get and where to get the best bang for the buck, which is not always what happens in Vegas.

Las Vegans, the surveys show, are sensible people when it comes to their dining dollars. Thousands of happy Olive Garden eaters can’t be wrong.