Guest chefs creating tableside experience on wheels
It wasn’t the kind of staid scene one might expect outside a fine-dining establishment in a five-diamond resort — guests lined up at the entrance to Bellagio’s Harvest, excitedly waiting for it to open. Yet that was the scene on a Friday in early December.
Inside, several chefs from the hotel’s other kitchens, including Prime’s Jean-Georges Vongerichten, had formed a small crowd of their own in the lounge, chatting among themselves. What had brought them all to the stunning, yet often overlooked restaurant was a guest appearance by Michael and Bryan Voltaggio, on loan from their Voltaggio Brothers Steakhouse in Maryland’s MGM National Harbor.
The celebrity chefs, best known for competing in Season 6 of Bravo’s Top Chef, were last year’s final participants in what’s become one of Las Vegas’ most buzzed-about dining events: Harvest’s Snack Wagon Takover series. The brothers would grill meat, shave white truffles and spoon sauces tableside while chatting with guests.
Michael was a little nervous.
“It’s a little bit overwhelming, to be honest with you,” the chef said shortly before service began. “Bryan and I both work in our restaurants. We’re guys on the line cooking, we’re not just guys walking around shaking hands. So for us, I think the hardest part is going to be splitting our time between being able to talk to the guests tonight and making the food. Because we’re sort of control freaks in that regard.”
That is the type of interaction Harvest executive chef Roy Ellamar envisioned when he introduced the guest chef series in 2016. It’s why, instead of asking them to create a traditional menu, he puts his guests in charge of the restaurant’s roving dim sum-style snack carts for an evening.
“People were doing pop-up chef dinners and things like that,” Ellamar explains. “I always wanted to do things like that in the restaurant, but something that’s not such a commitment for the chef, time-wise, as doing a whole sit-down dinner. I wanted it to be something more fun, and more organic, and something where you can interact with the chefs, as a guest.”
The first chef to take over the carts was Ben Jenkins, at the time the executive chef at Michael Mina’s eponymous Bellagio restaurant.
He enjoyed it so much he persuaded his boss, Mina, to come in for a Snack Wagon Takeover himself.
Since then, Ellamar estimates 30 to 40 chefs have participated in the series. Most have been from MGM Resorts International properties, either in Las Vegas or elsewhere. They include celebrities such as Shawn McClain, Rick Moonen, Todd English and Charlie Palmer.
But he’s also opened Harvest to visiting celebrities such as New York’s Paul Liebrandt, as well as off-Strip Las Vegas sensations including Dan Krohmer of Other Mama, Flock and Fowl’s Sheridan Su, Brian Howard of Sparrow + Wolf and District One and Le Pho chef Khai Vu. (Justin Kingsley Hall of The Kitchen at Atomic Liquor has just been confirmed for February 8.)
The only prerequisite to participate appears to be that Ellamar be a fan of your cooking.
“We put the egos down and everybody just makes their food and we have a good time,” he says. “I think that’s what cooking with friends and cooking with other chefs should be like.”
Next Takeover set
Harvest’s next Snack Wagon Takeover will be from 5-9 p.m. Friday with executive chef Nick Sharpe of Michael Mina’s Bellagio flagship restaurant at the wagons.
Sharpe seems confident about the menu, describing “more seafood focused (dishes) with approachable ingredients, done with a little more finesse and more high-end ingredients.” He admits, however, to being less comfortable with the social aspect of the evening.
“I wouldn’t say I like it, or I’m good at it by any means,” he says. He’s more at home in the kitchen. “It’s a little bit nerve-racking sometimes having a lot of people there around you, talking to you.”
He says he expects the crowd to make it a bit easier for him.
“When you have people interested in it and are really excited about it, it helps you to be at ease and talk about it,” he says. “I have a feeling that the people who come to stuff like the Snack Wagon Takeover are going to be the people who are interested in food and that interaction.”
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Contact Al Mancini at amancini @reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter.