Le Atelier; MGM Grand, Las Vegas

It's Joel Robuchon ... Nuff Said

They don't call Vegas Sin City for no reason ... name your weakness and there will likely be a bright, shiny temptation designed just for you. In our case it's food, and to a lesser extent, booze. Jay and I could care less about the limitless gambling, glitzy shows, or over-priced shopping. We want to spend our hard earned Chinese-owned dollars gorging at the trough of fine dining!

Which explains why, after dining at The Mansion last year for Jay's 40th birthday, we found ourselves next door at Monsieur Robuchon's slightly less expensive but no less delicious establishment on this Vegas trip. We briefly weighed the option of saving money on vacation against the prospect of enjoying dinner at another Michelin star restaurant and gratification of the gut won out in short order. After all, we're not made of stone!

Ahem.

Aside from the amazing food and service, we were keen to dine at Le Atelier because it had been about three years since our last meal here. And for us, once again showcasing our lazy, the fact that the restaurant was located within the MGM Grand meant that we could just walk there from our hotel room without ever setting foot outdoors.

Join us ... you know you want to.


The restaurant is located immediately off the casino floor, but once inside guests find themselves in a sleek, modern dining room with a large open kitchen where meals are prepared right before them. The interaction is always wonderful - the serving staff are all chefs in their own right and they love to talk about food and the unique cooking methods that Joel Robuchon utilizes. And if you're really fortunate, you will have a server like ours, who was so impressed by my desire to order a cheese plate on top of the 10-course tasting menu that he went out of his way to make a special one just for us. That's a cheese-tease, my friends; you will have to keep reading to find out more about the fromage!

Place setting


Sweet, glorious bread!


Le Atelier offers a Seasonal Discovery Menu, a small tasting menu, and a wide range of small plates. Jason and I always order the Discovery or Degustation Menu, because we can try so many wonderful items and because we are gluttonous pigs. Wine pairings are optional; on this evening we opted instead to enjoy a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne with dinner - bubbles make everything better, even in Joel Robuchon's kitchen.

L'Amuse


The meal started off with the Amuse Bouche - Vegetable Fondant topped with a delicate avocado cream. This was a smooth, creamy offering that perfectly balanced cool and slightly sweet avocado with salty vegetable gloop. It was enjoyable, but I think I actually liked the presentation more than the taste; if you ask me half the fun of dining at Le Atelier is that you never really know exactly what your food is going to look like until it's delivered by your serving team.

Our first official course was Celery Mousse with wasabi, beef stew gelee and slices of foie gras. You just don't know how badly I wanted to like this; but then again ... maybe you do. I adore foie gras and had high hopes for the dish but the mix of flavors just didn't work for me and I loathed the beef stew gelee. I can think of few things less appetizing than beefy jello (unless it's a bowl of mushrooms - please see Shibuya review for pictorial representation) and the texture was downright revolting - viscous and stone cold.

Le Celeri, I


Le Celeri, II


The next plate was much more to my liking: Sea Scallop cooked in the shell with chive oil. This scallop was such a joy to eat - so tender it practically melted in my mouth while the chive oil imparted a subtle garlic flavor that I really enjoyed.

La Saint Jacques


Next up was King Crab a la plancha with vegetables and lemongrass oil. Is it wrong that I still want to call this The Crab of La Mancha? It tasted really good ... so good that we had to fight back the urge to sing The Impossible Dream, which is a mercy for everyone who was in the restaurant that night. And in case you happened to wonder, la plancha refers to a cooking method that grills food on a metal plate.

Le Crabe Royal


This next course was one of our favorites: Asparagus with gratin of macaroni and comte' with smoked veal bacon. The noodle was filled with cheese and then rolled around the asparagus spear, then covered with more cheese and baked; the veal bacon was included on the plate almost as a garnish but did it ever taste fantastic. Jay and I have talked about stealing this idea and making a baked mac-n-cheese with asparagoose and bacon once the weather cools off ... yum!

L'Asperge


We were next presented with Dover Sole Filet with baby leeks and ginger. The presentation was colorful and the fish was delightful - sole is something we really enjoy thanks to its mild, buttery flavor.

La Sole, I


La Sole, II


For my miniature entree I selected Foie Gras stuffed Free-Range Quail with truffled mashed potatoes. The quail and foie gras were amazing; and while I know that Robuchon is famous for his mashed potatoes I sure wish these had been truffle-free. I much prefer his standard mashed taters whipped into a light, creamy cloud with nothing but milk and butter.

La Caille


Jay selected a French-style Hangar Steak with fried shallots for his entree. Although it's not mentioned on the menu he also received a spoonful of truffled mashed potatoes and he thought they were fabulous.

La Hampe


It was about this time that Jay excused himself for a few minutes and left me alone with our server ... always a mistake when the promise of cheese hangs in the air. Of course I asked about the evening's cheese plate since it wasn't included with our tasting menu and our server then asked me to name some of my favorite cheeses. I rattled off a couple, starting with the glorious and sinful Fromager d'Affinois. He said that Le Atelier's cheese plate didn't have anything that I mentioned but next door at The Mansion they might have something that would come close. Oh friends, we all know what they have at The Mansion ... a cheese trolley with more than 20 French bacterial by-products ... if I could have figured out how to steal it last year I would have.

The end result of this side conversation, much to Jay's surprise, was that our server reappeared about ten minutes later with a plate of brillat savarin and a basket of sourdough bread. Who among us doesn't squeeeee when this triple cream cheese makes an appearance? It's luscious, creamy, and entirely too edible, especially considering that it's comprised of 75% milk fat. And bless his heart, he didn't skimp on the serving - I swear our server gave us a quarter-pound to share and that's not cheap. You read that correctly - he gave; we weren't charged for this wonderful, beautiful hunk of gastronomic joy.

Brillat Savarin - Yum I


Brillat Savarin - Yum II


And then we had our cheese plate which he asked the staff at The Mansion to put together for us and it was blisssssssssss! I know this wasn't the standard offering because someone sitting at the counter next to us ordered it and received three completely boring cheeses that looked noting like our four ... or five if you count the brillat savarin. If you are what you eat then I'm the cheesiest person you've probably never met!

CHEESE ME!


Lesser stomachs might have had to stop here for the evening but we still had two desserts and coffee to get through. Dessert number one was Light Pineapple Cream with vanilla wafer, and lime and lemongrass sorbet. This was surprisingly tasty considering that I don't usually care for pineapple. And we really liked the silver leaf applied for garnish - it was very opulent.

Opulence ... we eats it; just like that Russian guy with the wee giraffe in the Dish Network commercials.

L'Ananas


Second dessert (just like hobbits!) was a Hazlenut Parfait with fresh grapefruit and praline crunch. As pretty as this was to look at it I just didn't care for it. I don't like grapefruit and I don't like nuts so this one was doomed from the start. Jay said it was alright but he thought the first one was much better.

La Noisette, I


La Noisette, II


And then the meal rounded out with some wonderful French Press coffee and some tasty little chocolates and caramels which don't show up very well in the picture below.

Cafe


All in all it was another fine evening enjoying the cuisine of Chef of the Century Joel Robuchon. Le Atelier remains one of our favorites due to its much more casual, relaxed atmosphere as well as its playful menu. Some day we hope to visit Le Atelier in France, but until then this Las Vegas location is a pretty tasty alternative!