When Trina Jiles opened Gritz Cafe in 2008, it became a reliable haunt for Southern and soul food in the Historic Westside. Since then, it has drawn a following for its breakfast plates, sandwiches and, of course, the grits — even if that following means that the compact dining room often has a wait. While the fried chicken here is both succulent and crispy, the fried catfish is the way to go for the filet’s light — almost fluffy — texture encased in a golden brown breading. Order either in a bowl with your choice of grits, vegetables, or fried potatoes, plus toppings like eggs and bacon, and a side of toast. Expect effusively warm service and ’90s R&B to reverberate in the room as you dig into biscuits and gravy, a dish piled with chopped sausage and eggs, or Gritz’s classic chicken and waffles.

The story of Aloha Specialties dates back to 1975, when casino magnate Sam Boyd opened the California Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas. After moving from Honolulu to Las Vegas, Boyd set about making the Cal a home away from home for Hawai’i natives. Today, Aloha Specialties at the Cal helps secure Las Vegas’s affectionate status as the Ninth Island, a nickname designated by the city’s significant number of Hawaiian visitors and residents. The restaurant reliably makes juicy shredded Kahlúa pork, steaming saimin bowls, pleasantly salty Spam musubi, teriyaki plates, creamy scoops of mac salad, and a mountain of gravy-laden loco moco for Hawaiian natives located across the lower 48.

Pizzaolo Tony Gemignani is a living legend. And his Vegas pizzeria, Pizza Rock, demonstrates Gemignani’s virtuosity in the art of the pie — he can knead, toss, and wood-fire cook pizzas of all kinds and denominations, including classic Neapolitan, Roman, Detroit, and New York pizzas.  He’s earned several international awards for his fluid approach to pizza-making, with nods from the International Pizza Championships and the Las Vegas Pizza Expo. With so many styles of pizza on Pizza Rock’s menu, it’s hard to go wrong, but visitors are well-served by ordering the margherita that won the World Pizza Cup in Naples, Italy. Gemignani only makes 73 of them a day, each pie crust swathed in San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella fior di latte, basil, olive oil, and sea salt. Or go for the slightly sweet Cal Italia with fig preserves, prosciutto di parma, four different cheeses, and a balsamic reduction.

If the lines outside Tacos El Gordo are any indication, the wildly popular tacos are still one of Vegas’s can’t-miss experiences. What the cafeteria-style restaurant lacks in ambiance, it more than makes up for in flavor. Each of the Tijuana-style tacos here is bursting with spice and texture. Arrive hungry and sample a few varieties, each about $3.50, by queueing up for each kind of meat. In one line, order carne asada. In another, ask for extra pineapple to go with the al pastor. Mulas, with cheese melted between the taco’s two corn tortillas are also worth ordering. Bring cash for tipping both at the counter when orders are placed and to pay the final bill.

Esther’s Kitchen was one of the first successful restaurants to debut in the Las Vegas Arts District, hailing a new era for the neighborhood as a culinary destination. The Italian restaurant, named for chef and restaurateur James Trees’s great aunt Esther, is now in a new and spacious location, but still a frequent haunt among locals. You have to pay for the bread here — and for good reason. Trees’s sourdough loaves are hearty and crusty, just right for slathering with spreads like basil ricotta and delightfully salty anchovy butter. But the real draw is the pasta — like a butternut squash tortellini tossed with brown butter and a hint of espresso for a richness that just works. In a dish of pasta al zucco, pumpkin-shaped noodles scoop up spicy bites of pork sausage and broccoli rabe.

What started as a pandemic-era backyard burger joint has since evolved into a residency inside one of Las Vegas’s best dive bars. Now a destination in its own right, Stay Tuned Burgers at the Hard Hat Lounge offers a tight menu of just the one smash burger — and one vegan alternative. Smash burgers here have hand-ground patties, pressed to cook in their own juices until they develop a caramelized lacy crust, and then layered with sauce, pickles, and diced onions in a warm potato bun. Go ahead and make it double, plus add a side of crispy, craggy tater tots. The burger-tot combination keeps its heat and structural integrity whether diners order a meal to go or sit barside inside the 60-year-old Hard Hat Lounge.

With barely-there lighting, red and black damask wallpaper, and a bar stocked with a veritable century’s worth of cocktail fixin’s, Nectaly Mendoza’s off-Strip steakhouse and bar feels at once romantic and like a 1920s speakeasy. Whether dining at a table or the bar, the move here is steak. Happy hour runs from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and after midnight — though sometimes it’s all-day, which means your steaks, pork chops, and spicy mussels are likely to be half-priced no matter when you stop in. The cocktail menu here is broken up by decade, so you can start with something like a gin-based Martinez from the Gothic Age, follow up with a Prohibition-era Hemingway daiquiri, and enjoy a painkiller from the tiki boom with dessert. 

In a city still teeming with the legacy of Old Vegas’s glory days, Golden Steer Steakhouse is rife with history, having once served Vegas royalty such as Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Elvis. Scenes from the movie Casino are said to be recreations of conversations that happened within the restaurant’s wood-paneled walls and red leather booths. The Golden Steer was established in 1958 and expanded its space in 2023. The menu is all classic steakhouse, with thick cuts of porterhouse, rib-eye, or tomahawk with gravy boats of jus, what’s perhaps the largest baked potato in Vegas, and jumbo western Australian lobster tail elaborately plated on its red shell and slathered in melted butter.

Nicole Brisson’s Brezza at Resorts World earned an Eater Vegas 2021 Eater Award for Restaurant of the Year for its handmade pasta, breezy dining room, and fragrant pockets of cappellacci oreganata. The coastal Italian restaurant sits in the District, the 70,000-square-foot shopping center at the front of the resort facing Las Vegas Boulevard. In addition to pasta, the menu spans antipasti, fresh crudo, Tuscan-style wood-fired grilled veggies, seafood, and dry-aged steak all charred over white oak and olive branches.

Every city needs a good diner, and the Peppermill, all wrapped in neon nostalgia on the north Strip, fills that space for Vegas. The 14-page menu runs the gamut from omelets and French toast to burgers and steaks. Atmosphere is available in spades — from the mirrored walls to the indoor artificial trees to the shakers of pretty rainbow sprinkles available at every table. No trip here is complete without a visit to the Fireside Lounge with its kitschy fire pit, enormous cocktails with equally proportioned bendy straws, and electric pink, blue, and violet decor.

Step inside this local barbecue restaurant and the first thing you’ll notice is the enticing smell of hickory smoke permeating the air. Las Vegas is steadily adding to its roster of excellent barbecue, and nowhere is that more evident than at Rollin’ Smoke. This joint makes St. Louis-style ribs that fall off the bone, tender brisket, and a smoky meatloaf, plus Southern standards like fried okra and hush puppies. Beyond its barbecue lineup, diners would be wise to try the Outlaw burger with glistening brisket, grilled bell pepper, and crispy onion strings. A ripe selection of barbecue sauces means slathering cheekily named concoctions, like Sweet Country Girl or the Carolina Vinegar, on all the meats. Save room for the banana pudding, super creamy with chunks of fresh banana.

The long-awaited Delilah, the breathtaking supper club from H.Wood Group at Wynn Las Vegas, features a two-level space with lavish chandeliers, a fireplace, and entertainers dancing alongside a live jazz band. Executive chef Josh Smith’s take on refined American fare includes wagyu beef Wellington, a reinvented — and high-end — chicken TV dinner, and Dover sole fish and chips with pommes soufflé. The decadence extends to the desserts, where a strawberry shortcake baked Alaska leads the way.

Chef Gen Mizoguchi, who changed the sushi game in Vegas when he opened his lauded Kabuto, offers one of Chinatown’s premiere Edomae sushi experiences at Yui Edomae. The restaurant features three sophisticated high-end omakase menus, ranging from $180 to $290. Each is prepared and served in a simple, intimate dining room where dishes of nigiri and sashimi — unburdened by sauces or heavy flavors — are the star. Standouts include uni nigiri with a dab of hand-grated wasabi, buttery bites of salmon, and very, very fatty tuna.

Part of a wave of on-Strip talent who exited the casinos and struck out on their own in Las Vegas neighborhoods, chef Brian Howard opened Sparrow & Wolf in 2017. The Chinatown bar and restaurant stands out among its neighborhood peers for serving modern American fare that leans into the fine-dining techniques Howard picked up working in restaurants like Comme Ça, Alizé, and Bouchon. Servers flit around the dimly lit dining room ferrying dishes like oxtail hummus and tortellini birria drenched in goat consomé, as well as cocktails infused with bruleed pineapple or garnished with fried mushroom. Howard’s take on the northern Vietnamese bánh cuốn, a dish of savory duck, fresh basil, and black rice roll, is at once sweet, spicy, and bright. Put your trust in the tasting menu, which opens with oysters and Japanese milk bread and ends with a chocolate espresso flan — each course paired with a wine from a small producer you’ve likely never heard of.

Modern — and even modernist — French fare gets pride of place at Partage, a partnership from the French trio composed of chef Yuri Szarzewski, pastry chef Vincent Pellerin, and manager Nicolas Kalpokdjian. Szarzewski’s three-, five-, and seven-course tasting menus rotate seasonally but consistently offer dishes prepared with equal parts technique and whimsy. Duck breast is plated with vibrant yellow sweet potato puree, lobster carpaccio comes with a quenelle of icy mango sorbet, and high-pigment flavorful sauces color in the negative space between slices of white fish. 

This late-night izakaya hot spot begins with a feast for the eyes: Concise descriptions of hamachi sashimi, bowls of udon noodles swimming in broth, and tangy fried chicken are scrawled onto pieces of paper in both Japanese and English and pasted above tables, around the bar, and behind the host stand. The specialties are listed along with reference photos and prices — usually around $3 to $7 — and span tender slices of raw fish from the restaurant’s sushi bar to heavier plates of smoky grilled squid, fluffy crab fried rice, and deep-fried agedashi tofu that go just right with a night of drinking. The move here is to order several dishes to share — evidenced by seating options that include a large communal table at the front and tatami floor-level seating at the rear for private groups. Save room for honey toast, an eye-catching loaf of toasted, buttered white bread with ice cream, fruit, and drizzles of thick honey. 

A killer raw bar and innovative cocktails greets diners at Other Mama on the west side across from Desert Breeze Park. The brief menu includes oyster specials, ceviches and sushi, and larger options like Japanese fried chicken, miso ribs, and kimchi fried rice, all served in a low-key setting with a bar overlooking the cooking action. The industry favorite restaurant offers a fairly modest interior — leaving small plates of deviled eggs topped with crispy oysters and French toast caviar to gain all the attention.

The Gold Coast’s Ping Pang Pong is the gold standard for dim sum by day and Cantonese dishes by night. More than 80 dim sum dishes — spanning mango lobster and scallop rolls to aromatic buns with southern Canton five-spice duck — wheel through the dining room steamed, fried, or grilled from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. During dinner, smoked orange rib-eye steak cubes seared with peppercorn and toasted garlic and a Macanese crustacean clay pot with a ginger laksa curry broth make the menu until 3 a.m. A Chinese pergola, Chinese lanterns overhead, and a host stand made from a Chinese apothecary cabinet add to the ambiance. Expect a wait or make a reservation in advance.

A celebration of all things maximalism, chef Chris Santos takes full advantage of the restaurant’s location next to the Omnia nightclub to turn the Las Vegas incarnation of his New York hot spot into a high-energy, luxurious night out. Flanked by mirrors and chandeliers, each dish is as much a joy to see as it is to eat. There’s a tomahawk steak that’s wheeled into the dining room suspended by fairy lights. French onion soup dumplings are drenched in a pool of melted Gruyere in an escargot dish. And the desserts are often a fit for Is It Cake?

Dining at Amalfi is everything a diner could ask for when visiting the restaurant of a celebrity chef — the food is superlative, a market display makes a fun process of selecting fish, and there’s even a chance they may catch Bobby Flay emerging from the kitchen during one of his visits. The fish options change nightly, dependent on what is flown in that day from the Mediterranean, and can be roasted with lemon and capers, red pepper and Calabrian chile pesto, or salsa verde. While the fish is being cooked to diners’ specifications, they can start with deftly charred octopus in burnt orange sauce or the selection of handmade pastas. Appropriately, the wine list features Italian wine that pair just right with fare influenced by the refined ease of the Amalfi Coast — second only to the pairing of an espresso martini with the restaurant’s pistachio gelato sundae dressed in dark chocolate sauce and Amarena cherries.

Revered Lotus of Siam serves chef and owner Saipan Chutima’s northern Thai cuisine, including a menu of Thai-style stews and coconut-less curries, with spice levels ranging from 1 to 10. Diners should start with nam-prik-ong, a red chile dip, then try a roasted duck curry, garlic prawns, or thum ka noon with its mix of pork, jackfruit, tomato, and spices. The exceptional wine menu of sweet Gewürztraminers and Rieslings cut the heat. 

Peek inside the open kitchen to watch as cooks at Shang Artisan Noodle meticulously knead, spin, and hand-pull tender and chewy noodles. The strands are then boiled for inclusion in pork and chicken broth with wontons and veggies or tossed in spicy soy sauce with mixed pork. The beef noodle soup with braised brisket is the crowd favorite here — rivaled only by the juicy and flavorful spicy wontons.

Watch the Fountains at Bellagio dance while you dine beneath the draped satin ceiling of Le Cirque. This award-winning French restaurant is helmed by chef Dameon Evers, whose tasting menus blend traditional French cooking with exciting flavors and striking presentations. The iconic lakeside restaurant, which debuted with Bellagio in 1998, refreshes its menu seasonally, with courses like Brittany loup de mer in leek fondue, wild risotto with sauteed chanterelle mushrooms, and seared foie gras with berries and pistachio.

Chef DJ Flores’s Mexican food doesn’t start with his tinga-marinated cauliflower or earthy, braised barbacoa — it begins with his approach to masa itself. Flores regards his tortilla-making with equal parts art and science — sourcing red, yellow, and blue dried corn from small farmers in Mexico, then boiling, milling, forming, pressing, and cooking the tortillas right in the restaurant’s kitchen, where the warm and delicately flavored tortillas find their way into chicken adobo tacos, triangle-shaped tetelas filled with spiced squash and mushrooms, and fried until crisp for chilaquiles. It’s all served in his casual restaurant, just right for dining in with a michelada or paloma — or ordering to go.

While José Andrés finally brought his divine tapas and paellas to Vegas, it’s é by José Andrés inside Jaleo at the Cosmopolitan that stands out for its creative tasting menu set before a vibrant red backdrop. Diners must make reservations far in advance to nab one of the eight seats for this exclusive multi-course meal. The menu, assembled in front of customers with tweezers and dry ice, changes constantly; one night may include scallop with black truffle, the next a literal bag of wild mushrooms, and another may feature foie gras encased in a cotton candy dumpling, a sprinkle doughnut, or a slice of Wonder Bread.

The Aria location of the decadent Italian-American restaurant Carbone features captains serving dishes tableside and seductive red velvet booths set in a circle, so everyone has a view of the dining room drama. Lobster fra diavolo, chicken scarpariello, veal Parmesan, and spicy rigatoni are just some of the folkloric dishes here, but octopus pizzaiolo and pickled cauliflower are worth considering. Daring diners can put themselves in the captain’s hands ​​— that is, if money is no object.

Diners may sit next to Chuck Norris, one of the celebrity photos that line the opulent space at the grand Joël Robuchon that feels like a cross between the inside of a Faberge egg and Marie Antoinette’s boudoir. The exquisitely crafted fare from Robuchon includes the 15-course degustation menu that is part French grandiosity, part Asian refinement. Truffled langoustine ravioli in a foie gras sauce, a semi-soft boiled egg on a spinach puree, and Maine lobster in a thinly sliced turnip join roving cheese, bread, and mignardises carts. 

With a flair for the dramatic, chef Oscar Amador has built a menu of inventive and playful dishes at this southwest Las Vegas restaurant. The team behind Edo Gastro Tapas & Wine harnesses flavors from Catalonia, Sicily, and beyond to prepare tapas like the Kaluga caviar and eggs, served inside eggshells, and the fig salad, arranged symmetrically with peach wedges and swirls of prosciutto, nestled among autumnal leaf-shaped wafers. Leave the decision-making to the kitchen and request the tasting menu.