Small Bites of the Apple
Beauty & Essex Dining Room
Boxing’s heyday may long be over, thanks to corrupt governing bodies, disappointing title fights and crooked promoters. But regardless of whether you believe pugilism is still relevant to today’s athletic landscape, for the sake of this story, boxing is critical.
If you’re a fan of Chris Santos, if you were one of the people counting down the days until the celebrity chef opened an outpost of his trendy New York restaurant Beauty & Essex here in Las Vegas, if you’re among the throngs of beautiful people swarming the bar at this location on a Friday night, or if you made your dinner reservation at the Cosmopolitan site the same day you booked your Las Vegas vacation, just so you could try some of those world-renowned soup dumplings, then you owe a debt of gratitude to — boxing?
I catch up (by phone) with the always-busy Santos, 45. He’s running between his three even busier New York restaurants. The aforementioned Beauty & Essex, built in the former M. Katz Furniture store on the Lower East Side, is a large space, two levels, with nods to what the neighborhood was and what it is now. Stanton Social, meanwhile, is the restaurant that launched the East Coast chef into the stratosphere of acclaimed cuisine. It also helped build his brand of social dining with riffs on ethnic dishes from around the world. And there’s the newly opened Vandal, a 450-seat behemoth. Its website touts the restaurant as a celebration of “the art, architecture and food of global street culture.”
Santos explains why he always wanted to open a place in Las Vegas. “I remember being a kid, watching the fights with my grandfather, and they would be outdoors at Caesars Palace. And I remember thinking, ‘One day I just want to go to Las Vegas, just once in my life, and sit ringside at a fight.’ And God bless. One of the biggest perks of the successes of my career is that whenever there is a big fight, I’m able to come out and sit ringside. It’s my favorite thing in the world to do.”
When he does come out, often to see his favorite fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the ring, he always unpacks his bags at the same place. “The cool thing about this is I really do love Cosmo. Ever since it’s been open, that’s where I stay. It’s my favorite place to gamble, eat and stay. I could have gone into another venue down The Strip, and it still would have been cool. But to have (Beauty & Essex) in a place that I genuinely love and support as a guest, it’s cool synergy. It feels good.”
It should.
Santos acknowledges that he had other options when it came to finding a venue for B&E, and that search included serious talks with other hotels. But none of those venues seemed right, he says. Still, to get B&E up and running at The Cosmopolitan (from first conversation to opening night) took three years. Judging now by the full dining room, and the swarms of patrons at the bar, everything worked out fine.
As you enter the former Comme Ça space, you pass under an awning and into a pawnshop. This will feel familiar to those who’ve dined at the original B&E. Design is always top of mind for Santos. Sure, the food has to be great. But so does the entire experience.
Why a pawnshop?
“We had other ideas that weren’t as sexy,” he says. “But ultimately we landed on (the) pawn shop. And we started thinking about the restaurant itself. It has so many jewel tones and jewelry references. The pearl lounge. All the lockets that are hanging. We decided that doing a pawn shop that really is a glorified jewelry shop would really have a nice tie-in to all the design elements that are in the restaurant.”
Jewelry might be the dominant theme in New York. But in Vegas, it’s the wall of guitars and the overwhelming aura of rock ’n’ roll that fills the air.
For Santos, it’s important that his guests enjoy both a familiar and a distinct experience. “When we got the space in Vegas, it was like: ‘Ok, how do we take what we have and transport it there, but also make it unique?’ What we really tried to do with the menu and the space — and we’re going to try and do the same thing with any other city that we bring this restaurant to — we call it 70/30. Seventy percent is basically stuff that you will find in the original New York store, 30 percent belongs to the city that you’re in, whether that’s a menu item or a design element or whatever.”
As for the food, whether you end up with the 70/30 or some other combination in between, you’re in for a damn fine meal. After clawing your way through the packed bar, you enter a giant dining room; while modern, it’s also a throwback to a time gone by. An Emerald Gimlet ($17 and echoing the old versus new theme) starts the party off right. The mix of Absolut “Elyx” vodka, basil and lemon nectar are held together harmoniously by the burnt lime slice that floats throughout the cocktail.
From there, the globetrotting journey of bites begins. From the raw bar section, tuna poke wonton tacos ($17) are a good version of a dish now found on many menus. The crispy shell plays nicely off the fresh fish, while micro cilantro adds color and radishes provide texture. Wasabi kewpie (smooth mayo) gives the whole thing a kick.
While the tacos might feel familiar, the tomato tartare ($14 and listed under Jewels On Toast) is unique. Santos says it’s “something that someone who loves steak tartare would also like, and be very rewarding for someone who doesn’t eat meat.” In this instance, it’s a case of new meets old. “We semi-dry tomatoes until they have that consistency of a dry raw beef tenderloin. Then we treat it as traditionally as a steak tartare gets with mustard and capers and anchovies and compress it. … When it’s executed right, I dare say that you could side-by-side blindfolded maybe not tell which is which.” I don’t know about that, but if given the meat-vegetable tartare option I’d pick the tomato version more times than not.
And then there are those internationally acclaimed dumplings. Santos estimates that The Stanton Social has sold around 3 million pieces of the French Onion soup dumplings ($18) since the place opened 11 years ago. It’s not on the New York menu, but it’s such a signature for the chef that he felt it necessary to bring the item to Vegas. As he sees it, “The French Onion soup one worked because the best bite of a French onion soup is that first bite, when you can get a crouton and you can get that melted cheese and you get a little bit of the broth and the onions. Eventually, when you get through half a bowl of French onion soup, it’s just a bowl of onions. But those first few bites are brilliant. Here every one you have is that first perfect bite of soup.” He’s right.
As good as those French Onion bursts are, I dare say the grilled cheese, smoked bacon and tomato soup dumplings ($18) are even better. Six soupspoons are filled with a rich tomato soup. What can be described as grilled cheese poppers float like tasty islands in each spoonful. It’s everything you wanted from your childhood lunch, elevated to an extremely high level.
The most surprising dish I tried came from the accessories (side vegetables) section. Broccolini ($12) is left whole and cooked and coated with a mixture of garlic, soy and chile. The flavors are assertive, and the vegetable is strong enough to take them on. It’s the most memorable version of this particular veggie I’ve ever tried.
Elote style scallops ($33) is an eye-catching and tasty plate from the main courses. Perfectly seared scallops sit atop a bed of Mexican style esquites – street corn off the husk – slathered in chipotle, lime and cilantro. If the dish just read elote, I still would have been happy to order it.
Finish your meal with black-bottomed butterscotch pot de creme ($13).
A quick aside:
Interestingly, right next door to Beauty & Essex sits D.O.C.G., Scott Conant’s casual Italian eatery. Both Santos and Conant, the two most brutal judges on Food Network’s Chopped, have seen their levels of fame rise exponentially from their work on TV. At least when they started, they pulled no punches.
At D.O.C.G., Conant puts out one of the best desserts in the city, a salted caramel budino. As I see it, it would be an epic Chopped dessert round if Conant put his Italian caramel pudding up against Santos’ French style butterscotch custard.
But that’s just fantasy talk, much like Chris Santos’ childhood dream of watching a title fight ringside in Vegas. Thankfully, that youthful “fantasy” has led to a delicious reality for us.
Avocado, Lemon & Espelette Jewels on Toast
Jerk Chicken
Spaghetti B&E
Tomato Tuna Tartare