This Week's Video
Most Active Articles
Dining Profiles
Giovanni Mauro
Nora’s passionate, opera-singing chef cooks up a nice piece of fish, Italian-style
For those of us who maintain a connection between fine dining and music, I offer, as an example, Giovanni Mauro. He’s the son of Italian parents who run the locals’ favorite Nora’s Cuisine, 6020 W. Flamingo Road, and he’s one of the most passionate Italian chefs in the city.
Read More »Eric Klein
Spago chef takes a rare holiday break to share a favorite seasonal soup
Eric Klein has cooked Thanksgiving meals for thousands of people, but has never celebrated the holiday himself.
“To be honest with you, during the 15 or 16 years I’ve been in America, I haven’t had the time off yet to do the Thanksgiving,” Spago’s executive chef says. “My wife gets the end of the stick. I told her already, this year on Thanksgiving, we won’t do Thanksgiving on Thursday—it’d not be fair. We’ll do Thanksgiving on Sunday.”
Read More »Luciano Pellegrini
The Italian chef shares his secrets for perfecting the all-American dish: turkey
Luciano Pellegrini, executive chef of Valentino at the Venetian, came to the United States in 1985 from his native Italy to work for accomplished restaurateur Piero Selvaggio. A winner of a James Beard Award, he has been at Selvaggio’s Valentino in Las Vegas since 1999.
Read More »Sweet Success
Aureole pastry chef Megan Romano infuses desserts with artist’s sensibility
Homegrown food and art always surrounded Megan Romano in the quaint home in which she was raised in North Haven, Conn. Not far beyond the front door, snap peas, strawberries, squash and blueberries sprouted in a small garden tended by her mother. Down in the basement, artwork emerged from the canvases and acrylic paint in her mother’s makeshift studio.
Read More »Self-Made Man
Not cut out for the mob, Steve Martorano finds his calling in the kitchen
You can call him a gangster or a goombah (you won’t be the first or the last), but whatever you do, don’t call him a chef.
“I’m just a cook,” Steve Martorano insists.
The 52-year-old doesn’t really look like one either. Instead of chef whites, he wears a tight T-shirt, military-inspired shorts and a winter hat. Instead of standard kitchen clogs, he dons blue Nikes. His exposed arms are covered in tattoos, and diamonds bling loudly from his ears, neck, fingers and wrists. Nothing about him is by the book, aside from his family recipes.
Read More »Doug Taylor
Batali’s dessert guru shares a treat that features homegrown goodness
Doug Taylor helped launch the Molto Vegas Farmers Market to show that good quality fruits and vegetables can be grown in our desert. As executive pastry chef at Vegas’ Mario Batali restaurants—Carnevino, B&B; and Otto—Taylor also proves this theory in his kitchens by producing a variety of delicious desserts.
Read More »The Five-Diamond General
Brian Kenny aims to please, and as executive chef of room service for Wynn/Encore, that’s a tall order
Chef Brian Kenny doesn’t see the Wynn and Encore as a pair of hotel-casinos; to him, they’re one big, sprawling, 4,700-room restaurant. It takes a small, efficient army to cater to thousands of guests’ demands 24/7, and as executive chef of room service, Kenny is its peerless leader.
Read More »Gaetano Palmeri
Sicilian restaurateur shares a flavorful pasta dish that’s a favorite of his wife’s
When local cognoscenti hear the name Gaetano, chances are they think only of one man and his restaurant in Henderson, at 10271 S. Eastern Ave. Think Frank, Dean and Sammy. Anyone who is anyone in Vegas, to paraphrase the writer John Gregory Dunne, is known by one name.
But, if you insist, his full name is Gaetano Palmeri, and he’s been operating his plush, spacious Italian restaurant here since 2002, along with his ever-present partner and wife, Rory.
Read More »In Good Spirits
At Nevada’s biggest liquor distributor, Michael Severino is the guy who makes sure the money flows back into the city, too
There’s little doubt that Michael Severino is a fortunate man. He works for a company whose business is alcohol, and besides being surrounded by some of the finest elixirs known to man, that business is always booming, thanks to a city in which more than 100 million alcoholic beverages are consumed each year.
On top of that, in his role as general manager of event marketing for Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada, Severino is responsible for overseeing the company’s extensive philanthropic efforts—essentially using spirits to lift spirits.
Read More »The Glad Scientist
The Whisky Attic’s Adam Carmer has invented a better way to taste
Mother Nature, in her divine wisdom, has equipped us with the good sense to look, touch and sniff before accidently offing ourselves with ingested hazardous substances. But when Whisky Attic/Freakin’ Frog owner Adam Carmer turns to you during a spirit tasting and says, “Don’t smell,” you should probably do as he says.
Read More »