Members of the New Orleans Business Alliance, Downtown Development District, Algiers Economic Development and some City Council members are heading home today from the annual International Council of Shopping Centers’ conference that wrapped up in Las Vegas Wednesday.
While in town, they touted New Orleans’ retail growth and reached out to merchants trying to lure them to cash in by setting up shop in the Big Easy. Even though the conference lasted less than a week, there was no way our local contingent could ever feel homesick, or want for BBQ Shrimp, in Sin City.
Local restaurateur Emeril Lagasse has not 1, but 4 restaurants to feast at in Las Vegas. Chef Lagasse just celebrated 25 years at Emeril’s New Orleans at the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Julia Streets. He said his flagship enabled him to hang multiple shingles in Las Vegas and sell more of his legendary Banana Crème Pie.
“The success I had at Emeril’s is what led me to open a restaurant in Vegas,” Lagasse says. “From there, the momentum just kept moving.”
In the middle of the vast Nevada desert you’ll find Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, Delmonico Steakhouse at The Venetian and Table 10 and Lagasse's Stadium at The Palazzo.
The NOLA business group could also have headed off “The Strip” and visited one of 2 Lola’s locations. Billing itself as a “Louisiana Kitchen,” Lola’s has a head Chef who was born in New Orleans and bred in Louisiana. Chef Elizabeth Pokorny said she comes from a long line of cooks, chefs and restaurateurs and has been preparing authentic Cajun foods of Southern Louisiana all her life, and in Las Vegas since the 1990s.
In addition to being served a heaping helping of gracious southern hospitality, at Lola’s you can find Po-boys served on Leidenheimer’s French bread, gumbo, shrimp remoulade, catfish and grits, charbroiled oysters, bread pudding served with Jim Beam praline sauce and Abita beer.
Rhythm Kitchen Seafood and Steaks, also off “The Strip,” boasts Cajun and French Creole apps and entrees including a Big Easy Sampler with frog legs, alligator tail, oysters and crab cakes and The Big Bayou including shrimp brochette, Cajun grilled scallops and charbroiled oysters. There’s even a dish called the Atchafalaya Crawfish Delight with blackened catfish over Cajun rice served with crawfish etouffee.
At The Orleans Hotel and Casino, the façade tries to capture the balcony-studded architecture of the French Quarter. It’s stable of restaurants include Canal Street, an upscale New Orleans-style dining room voted “Best Gourmet Restaurant in Las Vegas,” by readers of one of the local newspapers, Big Al’s Oyster Bar, which sells seafood specialties prepared with an authentic Creole/ Cajun flair and the French Market Buffet, where for $25.99 you can enjoy an all-you-can eat Seafood Night on Fridays from 4:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
If any delegates of the New Orleans business faction brought their Harrah’s Casino Total Rewards card with them, they could have always used them in one of the many slot machines at Harrah’s Las Vegas. Located in the thick of things, in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip, Harrah’s Las Vegas features a Ruth’s Chris Steak House, a Fulton Street Food Hall and an Oyster Bar.
Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House
