• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Sample fresh ingredients from small family farms at celebrity chef Tom Colicchio's Crafsteak.   (Photo: Courtesy of Craftsteak)

You're just not a chef if you don't have a restaurant out here. From a $99 margarita to a $5,000 burger, Vegas feeds on shameless indulgence. But only one meal is worth the sticker shock: the $225 six-course or $360 sixteen-course tasting menu at MGM Grand’s Joël Robuchon. The Parisian wonderchef’s set menu changes regularly, but expect delicious bite-size morsels like duck foie gras in a green-cabbage ravioli.

The best of Vegas’s great steakhouses is Tom Colicchio’s Craftsteak, where short ribs, lamb shanks, and quail complement the standard cuts; order the charcuterie of artisanal salamis as a starter.

Celebrity-chef outposts crowd the Strip, but San Fran’s Bradley Ogden actually moved here to run his eponymous eatery at Caesars Palace, serving up “Farm Fresh American” fare sourced from small purveyors across the nation.

Lotus of Siam rivals Thai food in Jackson Heights. Skip the lunch buffet and savor dinner.

Oct 11, 2006 issue of New York Magazine