INTERVIEW: Alexandra Epstein

Alex Epstein is assistant general manager at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas.


Downtown redevelopment is characterized by a mix of old and new, vintage Vegas and the thought that new Vegas is old Vegas. The El Cortez is so well positioned for that growth. Do you feel that way?
Yes. I think we embody that whole idea. We have been around for 70 years, this is our 70th anniversary, and we are experiencing a surge, a growth in our demographic. I think that says something, a testament that old Vegas is new again. I think people want to be around here and be part of the changes that are happening. The concept of what we want downtown to be is also not a new concept. Any city that's been around for a while has a cultural core that is their downtown, and now there is this demand for that here. We want Vegas to be an institutionalized city, an actual city that has some history and culture to it, and think there is a demand now to build that into this idea.


Is it difficult to celebrate the history of a place like the El Cortez and yet still appeal to a new, different audience?
I think a big part of looking forward is celebrating that culture and that past. I think it goes hand in hand. Any city's cultural core is forward thinking but celebrates its past, and Vegas just has a different past to celebrate. We have the Mob Museum coming in, we have the Neon Museum, we have Las Vegas' original casinos here, and those things just happen to be our past and our history, and the "cultural class" likes to celebrate that. They like it, and they get it, and they don't really want to escape from that. So I don't think those two concepts are warring with each other. I think it grows quite naturally together.


The El Cortez has been growing and renovating for a while now, huh?
It's a 70-year-old building so we have to do a lot to keep it up. But there really has been a big push in the past five years to renovate. Between our Jackie Gaughan Parkway, our porte cochere, and our Cabana Suites, there has been a lot going on, and quite a strong push in conjunction with the East Fremont development.


Have other organizations and businesses sought out El Cortez as a partner in these downtown developments are have you been more active?
It's been a mix of both. There have been people that have approached us, like the Cornthwaites with the idea of Emergency Arts in that building, and we worked together to make it happen. It's been a great collaboration and a great product we've been able to come out with. Other people have approached us, too, but it's just a very collaborative neighborhood in general. We work together with others like the Ogden across the street. We have welcome packets for their new tenants. We also go out and approach others, like we did with our design competition. We approached World Market Center to work together to do something for the Cabana Suites. So it's a give-and-take.


The restaurants at the El Cortez are pretty classic, your coffee shop and your steakhouse, The Flame.
It's pretty standard but the quality is definitely above standard. You don't really know until you come to the El Cortez what a gem it is. We could put more into marketing our food, and we are actually renovating our steakhouse now, but the food is actually outstanding. We have a great food and beverage director, and we are a family of foodies. This is a family business and we are all about food. We wouldn't want to not be able to eat here.


The coffee shop is really a Vegas institution that seems to be disappearing, and the El Cortez version is one spot that is kinda keeping that old school thing alive.
Our waiters and servers know all of our customers by name, there's that familiarity there. And the quality is there. I will stand by this: our matzoh ball soup is the best in Las Vegas. A lot of people say "Is it as good as Bagel Cafe?" I tell them it's better. And we have a Chinese kitchen, which is kind of a strange and random thing, but it's very popular. Everything at the steakhouse is fresh, never frozen, all of our fish and meat is flown in fresh. The steakhouse really is a gem, too. The service is great, we have a really great wine list with extremely reasonable prices, and that's something we've got a reputation for. Our specials do really well. The stone crab, when it's in season, we fly it in and serve it every week and we usually sell out. For our anniversary, we are putting together a vintage menu, with menu items you can't find anymore like oysters rockefeller. It's really old school stuff. You can ask for the vintage menu now even though we're not advertising it yet. And we're open to suggestions, too. We really researched it. We went to UNLV and looked at all these old menus and then went through all these rounds of tasting to see what we did and didn't want to do. It was pretty extensive.


On East Fremont, there are so many great bars now, and it's really a great crowd down there. But food-wise, there still isn't a lot right around the neighborhood that this group can find.
Not yet. We have great food at The Beat. And Le Thai is going to be a great Thai place when it opens across the street. But we definitely need some more variety. This is going to be a part of town where people come for a great night, for food and drinks, and it just makes sense.


So as someone who is here a lot, and has been to other cities, and as someone who is a foodie, what would you like to see down here?
All kinds of things. I lived in New York for four years and Los Angeles for a year and was very proactive in seeking out great food in those cities. There's a place in L.A. with all different kinds of bratwursts and all different kinds of beer, and really good fries, and that's all it is. In the back is picnic seating, kind of a like a beer garden, with a DJ in back. I thought something like that could work great in downtown Vegas. Any kind of gastropub would be great. But I think we should leave the real high-end stuff to the Strip. A great pizza place, like Settebello, I would love to have that down here. More outdoor cafe-type places would be great, since we have perfect walking areas down here. There are so many things that we could do.


I don't think anyone thinks of downtown as being a great food neighborhood in Las Vegas, and I think the reputation of the El Cortez is more about its history than its restaurants. But what you have done is pave the way for some very significant food and beverage developments downtown, specifically allowing one building your company owns to become Emergency Arts, which houses The Beat Coffeehouse, and also allowing your space to host the Vegas Streats festival every month.
It was a very lucky thing how that worked out. It just made perfect sense. There was no reason for us not to be doing it. We has the perfect space to let these food trucks do what they do. I think Vegas Streats is huge for downtown Vegas. In my mind, it goes beyond just food, because to me food is the most important part of culture. But it's really just about how people live, and food is such a big part of that, so it makes sense for downtown to be where people recognize that it doesn't have to be fancy food to be good. Vegas Streats has exposed thousands of people to really talented chefs and cooks, and if they associate they can come down here and have this great experience with food trucks and really cool old hotels and great bars, that's what we're trying to do -- change people's perspectives.


I'm sure you have a lot of ideas how to change and grow Vegas Streats, but do you think the following is already there?
Yes. The first one, we had so many people we just didn't know what to do with them. We didn't advertise anything and there was no press coverage, so it was all social media and word of mouth. And everybody was asking, when's the next one? The second time we had a lot of questions, a lot of press, a lot of emails after. And now different vendors and artists want to be involved, so we don't know what to expect looking ahead. But we plan on keeping it up, and this is something that downtown really needs. Everyone is working hard down here and really good food is the next direction.


You are a real Las Vegan and you know your way around town. Where else do you like to eat?
I love Sen of Japan and Raku and Monta for Japanese, those are all classics. For Italian, we're big fans of Cafe Chloe on Flamingo and Buffalo. It's been around for a while, and the chef has been here forever. It's Chef Piero, from the original Piero's. It's all homestyle cooking, the portions are huge, the pasta is piping hot when it comes out, there's a lot of garlic and it's just great. And the people are great. It's my favorite Italian place in Las Vegas. I do think the best pizza in the city is at Settebello. I also really like Nittaya's, which is a new place in Summerlin. Every time I've gone there I've had a good meal.


Are you one of the rare Vegas locals who actually eats on the Strip frequently?
I do. You can't hate it just because it's on the Strip. I definitely appreciate everything there is to enjoy on the Strip. We have the best restaurants in the world. To not take advantage of that would be insanity.


Your Strip favorites?
I've enjoyed everything I've had at Cosmopolitan. They do a great job at Milos, Holsteins, STK, Scarpetta.  We go to Wynn a lot. We just had a really good meal at Lakeside Grill. We love SW Steakhouse. Bartolotta, obviously, is amazing. Those are all just really pricey ones, special nights out. There are so many great places.

the best restaurant in downtown las vegas.

Downtown is full of interesting developments these days, not the least of which is tonight's street food festival near the historic El Cortez hotel-casino. But sadly, there still are few outstanding places to eat in our city's original hot spot, particularly on the main drag of Fremont Street. The aging neon casinos are struggling in this still troubled economy, and cutting costs means cutting back on restaurants. (The most notable restaurant to open down here in quite some time, Firefly at the Plaza, may or may not re-open when the casino's renovations are complete. We'll see. Doesn't look good.)


There are still some classic gourmet rooms in the area, including Hugo's Cellar at Four Queens, the Flame at the El Cortez, and the under-appreciated Second Street Grill at the Fremont. And then there's Vic & Anthony's, which easily outpaces anything else downtown. It's not a surprise; the Nugget is by far the best and biggest resort in old Vegas, especially after the recent addition of a new tower of hotel rooms and another seafood-happy restaurant, the Chart House. When Landry's Restaurants honcho Tilman Fertitta bought the joint around six years ago, his first move was to change the existing, decent Nugget steakhouse right off the main lobby into an updated version of Houston's acclaimed Vic & Anthony's. It's a cool room, dark and comfy with a vintage vibe to it. You can call dibs on a live Maine lobster on the way to your table, if you like. Or you can stick to traditional cuts of beef expertly prepared; the filet mignon was one of the tastiest takes ever on this usually boring cut.


My favorite part of the menu here, as it is anytime I visit a great Vegas steakhouse, is the appetizer selection. Here, everything is a winner, but you cannot miss the maple glazed quail, a sticky-sweet-crispy mini-bird that will have you considering a double order, or the all new seared scallops with apple slaw and bacon tabasco vinaigrette. Scallops are another ordinarily dull dish, but the kitchen brings some serious kick here. I'd have been happy with this pretty plate of three large bivalves, the sweet, fruity salad, a bottle of wine, and a healthy slab of badass bread pudding with dulce de leche ice cream. Didn't even need the steak, or the lobster tail. Or the crabcake. Damn, that crabcake was really good, too.


Vic & Anthony's isn't much of a secret. It's hard to hide in the Nugget. But the food here sets the downtown standard and wouldn't be out of place in a hotel on that other famous Vegas boulevard.

golden gate = history.

I'm sitting at the counter in the diner inside the Golden Gate, devouring a wonderful cheeseburger. This is my last meal in the Bay City Diner, but I don’t know it yet. This old, reliable, downtown greasy spoon will become something else, something slightly different and even better.

But let’s focus on this cheeseburger. For months I've been riding a trend, eating and writing about fancy, 12 to 20-dollar gourmet burgers at restaurants on the Strip opened by famous French chefs, burgers with handcrafted, imported ingredients and a custom formulated blend of ground cow, but this thing is making me forget them all. It's a third-pound of chuck off the flat-top, dropped on a butter-toasted bun with extra crispy bacon, sauteed mushrooms and way too much melted Swiss, shredded iceberg, two big tomato slices, four nice dill pickle chips and a full disc of yellow onion. It was cooked by a very tall, very thin, very bald black man who's wearing an impossibly white coat, working hard without breaking a sweat, encased in a shiny, silver, grease-spattered kitchen a few feet in front of me. For a minute, he’s staring out at me through the big open kitchen window. His eyes seem to be asking what I think of this burger. I think it’s great. His nametag reads JOE and he's wearing gold hoop earrings and gold-framed glasses. How is his coat so white? He's teasing the waitresses, occasionally gyrating a little and singing "Freaky In The Club" by R. Kelly. That’s extra funny because that’s not the song playing over the tinny speakers in the diner. It’s “On My Own.” The waitress is ignoring his performance, instead trying to find out who's singing the piped-in song. It's Patti Labelle. High above the counter, mirrored display cases show you which pies and cakes are available today. The old man to my right has a handkerchief tied around his neck and is ordering a ham steak and eggs over easy with a side of sausage and orange juice, but he doesn’t want his juice until the food comes. The guy to my left is ignoring his cheese-covered omelet and calling in NBA point spreads to someone over the phone. This burger is gone. It was delicious, an exemplary, American cheeseburger.

The Golden Gate is the oldest hotel-casino in the state of Nevada. Also, it is older than the Golden Gate Bridge, which is interesting because it’s probably the only Vegas casino that’s been around longer than whatever it’s themed after. (Of course, the casino wasn’t always called the Golden Gate.) Perhaps it’s more interesting that in 1905, the hotel’s prime downtown location at Main and Fremont streets was the site of the land auction that began the Las Vegas town site. There were guests at what was then called Hotel Nevada that May, before there was a building, staying in a tent structure. Downtown Las Vegas was happening before it was downtown Las Vegas. When the mission-style building opened in 1906, people insisted on staying at the hotel before the interiors were completed. Casino action started in the spring of 1907 with roulette, craps and blackjack. The first telephone in Vegas was installed here, too. In the early 1930s, the joint changed its name. For around 20 years it was dubbed, quite ridiculously, Sal Sagev, or Las Vegas spelled backwards. The beginnings of its San Francisco-themed makeover took hold when a group of Italian-Americans from the Bay Area took over in 1955.

The boss of the Golden Gate today, a friendly guy named Mark Brandenburg, is a Las Vegas lawyer who ditched his practice to join the family business. His stepfather was one of those San Francisco guys, and around 1990, Brandenburg and his brother Craig started buying out those other owners. Since then, they’ve added a few hotel rooms and efficiently updated the property, turning it into something of an old-school boutique hotel on the old-schooliest street in Vegas. In 1996, for better or for worse, the classic downtown drag was forever altered when the Fremont Street Experience canopy was finished. This 1,500-foot ceiling of cheesy flashing lights brought some good to the five blocks of Fremont where the Gate, Plaza, Binion’s, Golden Nugget and other casinos reside (it’s much cleaner now and suitable for outdoor concerts and events) but it also transformed a nice chunk of our history into a nostalgic pedestrian mall. Visit and make your own judgments.

Sitting in his small, plain office upstairs from the casino, Brandenburg gives me a quick history of his family and his casino. Mom was from West Virginia. She stopped in Vegas on the way back from California and never made it home. It was the weather. She got a job as a cocktail waitress at the Gate and met Italo Ghelfi, the leader of that group of San Francisco guys, the one who ran the casino for 40 years. There’s a picture frame set on a shelf in this office, a photo of Ghelfi, and the guy looks mean. He’s kinda bald and he’s wearing dark glasses, like a clichéd character from that Vegas era. But Brandenburg assures me that’s not the case; he was another friendly guy, and quite the gaming pioneer. Ghelfi didn’t just keep the casino going. His innovations and ideas established a reputation on Fremont Street that Brandenburg and his co-owners are still taking advantage of today. Not every casino is so open and proud of its history. Most are caught up in making things new again, and again, and the Gate – which is a nice, clean place to gamble and party – is quick to remind you of a bygone era. It doesn’t want to change too much, and I don’t want it to. I didn’t want the Bay City Diner to change, but it did.

But wait, we’ve moved past something very important. The Gate’s casino is just fine. It feels like downtown, it’s kinda dark and whisky-friendly, and there’s a nice long bar resting beside the main stretch of table games. Some new bells and whistles have been added in the last year, including go-go dancers on busy nights and a frozen beverage bar in front of the main entrance on Fremont Street. As a hotel, I have no interest in the Gate because the accommodations don’t converge with my primary hotel principle, which states: If I can afford it, I don’t want to stay there. But I’ll allow some secondhand description from my kid brother: It’s tiny. I heard some of the rooms are the original rooms from when it was built, and I think that’s the room I got. It’s so small that the TV is on the side of the bed because it wouldn’t fit anywhere else. It’s so small the bathroom door won’t open all the way because it hits the toilet. I was terrified to walk in and out of my room because I kept thinking there’d be creepy twin sisters at the end of the halls. You get the picture.

Casino, hotel, diner … these are not the things the Golden Gate is known for. For most, it always has been ground zero for the shrimp cocktail. This is another Ghelfi innovation, obviously, coming from the Bay. It began in 1959 and it hasn’t stopped. As long as I can remember, the price was 99 cents, but today it’s $1.99. That gets you a tall, cool parfait glass, “the tulip,” overflowing with chilled, firm, large shrimp, doused in spicy cocktail sauce and served with a lemon wedge and as many Saltines as you need. There’s no lettuce. Who needs lettuce? I’ve brought a handful of people through here, some out-of-towners and some just out of touch with downtown, and everyone thinks the shrimp cocktail is a joke. But they try one, just for kicks, and they’ve all admitted: This thing is pretty good. The shrimp bar is at the south end of the casino, in the back, right down the stairs from Brandenburg’s office. He told me they’ve been going through about a ton of shrimp a week for a long, long time. I asked him how many times a day he asks his assistant to run down and grab him one. “I go down and get my own.” Yes. I would, too, many times a day. In the pantheon of Vegas novelties (and they are harder to acquire or experience than they used to be) the shrimp cocktail is one I refuse to go without. In any steakhouse, you can get a good one, but here, it is tradition. That’s what makes it taste so good.

But everything changes. Like the diner, the shrimp bar was the target of a subtle upgrade recently. There always was more than shrimp on the menu; hot dogs, deli sandwiches, surprisingly tasty, spicy vegetable soup and standard slices of pie were among the popular items. Now, the pie is way, way better. This is because of Du-par’s. Here’s the crazy connection that brought a famed L.A. coffee shop to historic downtown Vegas: Du-par’s owner Biff Naylor built the original kitchen in the Golden Gate diner. That’s because his dad, Tiny Naylor, was a former partner in the casino. The Naylors are a legendary California restaurant family, in case you haven’t heard, starting when Tiny opened up his waffle shops in 1926. They bought the 70-year-old Du-par’s chain in 2004 and kept things the same, particularly the restaurant’s famous, buttery pancakes and fresh-from-scratch pies. And so when Brandenburg went hunting for improvement, it was natural to transform my beloved Bay City Diner into Du-par’s Restaurant & Bakery. And I can’t complain, because the place looks exactly the same: the long, dark wood counter I call home, windows peering out to Main Street, red leather booths, the dining room in the back. The cuisine is mostly the same, classic breakfast, lunch and dinner at the diner. But now, everything is a little bit … better.

There’s no sign of JOE back in the kitchen, but many of the servers are still here. The cooks’ coats are still immaculately white, and now they’ve accessorized with a red handkerchief knotted around the neck. Those mirrored cases up above are now densely populated with pies, all kinds of pies, and they look and taste so much better than the Bay City Diner’s dessert offerings. On the counter, there are more cases, big round glass ones, holding gigantic, shining doughnuts. It’s difficult to get past the baked goods, to not order a sweet almond bear claw or mountainous muffin. But if you do move beyond breakfast – and know that those buttercrisp-edged pancakes live up to every ounce of their reputation – you’ll find some stellar throwback food, hearty all-American stuff like yellow split pea soup, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy and tuna melts. But I needed the cheeseburger to be great in order to properly put things to rest, so after I tried all that stuff, and a few different flavors of pie, I went back for more. I sat at the counter. I considered the patty melt, a beautiful thing on grilled rye bread with just the right amount of caramelized onions, but I decided to stay pure. Bacon and Swiss burger, still all chuck, still with a pile of fries. It came out quick, and it wasn’t the same burger. It was probably better. The bun was great, fresh and soft. The bacon was smokier. The meat quality was several steps up, and not over-seasoned. Everything was right. I killed it with speed, and I left feeling satisfied and guilt-free. Change must be good, because I still have never left the Golden Gate after lunch feeling anything other than happy to be in Las Vegas.

a whole new world.

All of a sudden, Vegas is flush with new Mexican restaurants. On the Strip, it's a market driven solution: A quaint taco shop called El Segundo sits strong on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fashion Show Drive, where the tapas joint Cafe Babareeba was doing brisk business just weeks ago. In high traffic areas like this one, and the Mandalay Place walkway between resorts Luxor and Mandalay Bay where the infamous Hussong's Cantina opened a few months back, a familiar concept focused on tacos and burritos, chips and salsa and margaritas is bound to do better. Tourist tastes are still middle-of-the-road, and the less exotic the better.

But off the Strip, it's a different story. Downtown, hiding in the World Market Center furniture superspace, right across from the massive, just underway Symphony Park development, here is Mundo. It comes to us from the same folks that operated La Madonna, a southwest valley "avant garde" Mexican restaurant that had a following but ultimately didn't last long. As evidenced from the creativity displayed here (up top we've got a great appetizer, smoked chile-crusted swordfish skewers with a jicama salad, and underneath is carnitas in black bean broth, which left me satisfied for almost an entire day), it couldn't have been the food that spelled La Madonna's demise. Mundo's chef is working very similarly to what is being done at our most upscale and innovative Mexican restaurants on the Strip, places like Border Grill in Mandalay Bay. Another stunning opener is the poblano chile corn soup, creamy smooth and full of bright cumin. There is quite a bit of seafood and quite a bit of beef on the menu of entrees, including avocado leaf crusted sea scallops with cheesy risotto, a shrimp tamale, a skirt steak with chimichurri, and a peppercorn and red chile crusted filet mignon floating on some killer sauces: smoked chile and asada tomatillo.

Like every other buzzed-about downtown Vegas destination, Mundo boasts a cocky hipness that can sometimes be a restaurant's undoing. But they back up any attitude with superior cuisine, putting their own unique twists on the concept of unique twists on traditional flavors. If you make the rounds downtown, you've already eaten here. If you're out in the 'burbs, this is worth the trip. If you're coming into town and looking for a cool joint with delicious, contemporary food beyond your hotel, check out Mundo.

casa don juan.

The first time I went to Casa Don Juan, it was for a job interview lunch years ago. It was with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority and I had chile verde. It was good. That would have been a pretty funny job for me, huh?

The second time, it was meeting up with new girlfriend and her friends during a First Friday arts event, and it was a bit nerve-wracking but there were giant margaritas. Those were good, too.

But I was never really impressed with the food at this downtown cocina until I had an early dinner there last night. The chips were especially crunchy and corny, and the salsas, though a bit thin for me, were fresh and zingy. I ordered a rice-and-beans plate with a fully-packed shredded beef enchilada, a crisp beef taco and a hearty relleno. Everything was better than just good. The relleno, in particular, was interesting. The "crust" on the pepper was soft, spongy and warm, kind of like an omelet instead of some fried disaster, and it tasted of eggs but not in a breakfasty way. It was light and satisfying at the same time.

I will gladly take Casa Don Juan as my downtown Mexican restaurant of choice, ahead of the perfectly fine Dona Maria Tamales and the quaint but overrated El Sombrero Cafe.

INTERVIEW: Oscar Goodman

MenuVegas' very first interview is with the Happiest Mayor in the Universe, Oscar Goodman.

You've been in Las Vegas for a long time. How have you seen the dining landscape change over the years?

Oscar Goodman: I've been here forever. I came here in 1964, and back in the old days the only place to get a steak was Bob Taylor's Ranch House. And you had to psyche yourself up for the 20-minute drive to get out there. It was the only game in town.

And now you can get anything, anywhere, anytime.

Absolutely. When you look at statistics from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, it shows empirically that as for why people come to Las Vegas, number one, they come to shop, and the second reason is for food.

You grew up in Philadelphia. Ever get cravings for a great cheesesteak?

You know what I miss most is my Philadelphia pizza. I miss it every day.

What's Philly pizza like?

I can't figure it out. It just tastes better. I do miss my cheesesteaks from Pat's and other places I used to go to.

You can't find any pizza in Vegas like back home?

Well one thing I can do is call my friends over at Metro Pizza, and if I tell them about a place in Philadelphia, they'll call that place and ask how they make their pizza, and then they'll try to do it that way.

If instead of being mayor of Las Vegas today you were still a defense lawyer representing certain clients...

Reputedly.

Right, those guys. Where would those guys eat and hang out today?

That's a good question. That wasn't that long ago. But where they would go to have their business meetings, so to speak, would be the back room at Piero's, which is still around today.

Where's the downtown Vegas power lunch spot?

The Triple George Grill is very strong. Another place that's picking up is Hennessey's, on the corner of Fremont Street at the old Race Rock. Those are the two spots. But then you also have Chicago Joe's, still going strong. They have such a presence downtown. You want to know a real sleeper, one of my favorites? The Philly cheesesteak place on Fremont Street. It's an old greasy spoon, frequented only by myself and the homeless.

Do you eat out often? Do you like to try new restaurants?

I'm a man of habits. I have my places I go to. I love my wife's cooking the best. She's the best short order cook I've ever seen. She can come home dead tired and whip up a meal in a half-hour better than any place on the Strip. But we usually eat at ethnic places. We'll go to Fellini's for Italian, Hedary's for Mediterranean, Diamond China for Chinese and Lotus of Siam for Thai food. I recently had to give a speech at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay and I walked through the shopping area there (Mandalay Place), and they had some restaurants in there that looked phenomenal.

I don't want to ask you this but I have to: who mixes the best martini in town?

I do.