Guests at chef Charlie Trotter’s latest restaurant will not have a Charlie Trotter’s experience—not, at least, of the type they have come to expect at that time-honored establishment, which has remained Chicago’s temple of haute cuisine since its opening in 1987.

"Chicago is the Holy Grail," says Trotter. "It’s a very serious, very formal degustation-dining format. People will tell us, ‘We love going there, but it’s sort of like going to church: You have to pay attention.’ So for Restaurant Charlie in Las Vegas, we let our hair down and had a bit of fun."

This sense of fun is reflected in the space itself, which is located in the casino of the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino complex’s 3,000-room Palazzo. Unlike most Las Vegas hotel restaurants, Restaurant Charlie is entirely enclosed against the chaos that accompanies the endless rows of slot machines and craps tables outside: Its exterior walls of knotted hardwood give the structure a cavelike appearance that belies its clean, geometric interiors, which are divided into a reception and bar area, a sushi bar called Bar Charlie, and a main dining room. One may also reserve the chef’s table, which is suspended above the fray of the main kitchen, over which chef Michael Rotondo—formerly of Trotter’s Chicago restaurant—presides.

This arrangement presents the diner with tantalizing choices. "The main dining room is à la carte," says Trotter. "We don’t want people to feel obligated to sit for three hours over 10 courses. They can order an appetizer, an entrée, and split dessert. Bar Charlie tends to attract the foodie-oriented folks who order eight to 18 courses."

In true Trotter fashion, the menu changes seasonally, with seafood—particularly exotic Asian fish—taking center stage, while meat and game tend to play supporting roles. Chef Rotondo also provides variety through the use of different cooking techniques. "Some things are cooked on a very, very high-heat charcoal grill," says Trotter, "while we like to cook other dishes sous vide, in vacuum packages. Others are raw or marinated."

Whether you stop in for a quick bite of cuttlefish with Asian pear and chervil or Japanese eel with grapefruit or you linger for hours over a multicourse meal culminating in seared hamachi with braised veal cheek in morels and chanterelle-mushroom sauce followed by a steamed cacao-nib cake with candied kumquats and tangerine, this Charlie Trotter experience will certainly be your own.

Restaurant Charlie, 702.607.6336, www.charlietrotters.com

Momofuku Ko

 

Since opening Momofuku Ko (www.momofuku.com) in New York’s East Village early last year, chef David Chang has been called erratic, intense, and original. Mining from a variety of world cuisines and reshaping them to conform to his avant-garde style of cooking, Chang—who is classically trained in French cuisine—has created a string of such imaginative dishes as an egg cooked sous vide with osetra caviar, triangles of pork belly, and deep-fried braised short ribs. "The massive problem with American cuisine is that everybody wants everything to be categorized," says the outspoken 31-year-old. "But it doesn’t have to be. Food just needs to be delicious and well-made." Indeed, the deep flavors, combined with contrasting textures and juxtaposed temperatures, of Chang’s daily tasting menu often have diners rethinking both the concept of fine dining and what they are willing to endure to experience it: The sparse, Michelin-two-starred restaurant offers 12 bar seats only. Reservations are accepted no more than seven days in advance, and only via the restaurant’s web site—no phone calls.

Adour at the St. Regis Washington, D.C.

 

Located two blocks from the White House, in the newly renovated St. Regis Washington, D.C., Adour (202.509.8000, www.adour-washingtondc.com) fast became a favorite among the capital’s power elite when it opened last September. The modern decor—which features sleek furnishings in bold shades of black, silver, brown, and gold—creates an elegant yet lush ambience; but the main draw is wine director Ramon Narvaez, whose singularly insightful suggestions of wines to pair with each course of the restaurant’s French-American contemporary cuisine have earned him a devoted following. In fact, Narvaez works side by side with executive chef Julien Jouhannaud to develop the restaurant’s seasonal à la carte and tasting menus.

"It’s a unique and time-consuming concept," says the 30-year-old Jouhannaud, who presents a variety of sauces and dishes to Narvaez; the wine director then selects from Adour’s 650-label cellar the wines that best enhance these flavors and textures. For the John Dory served on the winter menu with artichokes prepared three ways (sautéed, fried, and in a pureed sauce), Narvaez chose the Domaine Lamy Pillot Chassagne Montrachet Pot Bois, 2006—truly sublime.

 

L20

 

In American gastronomy, true revolutions are less common than minor revolts, but occasionally one flares up—as it did last spring in the kitchen of Chicago’s L2O (773.868.0002, www.l2orestaurant.com). Not since the opening of New York’s Le Bernardin two decades ago has a new restaurant done so much to change perceptions and concepts of seafood-based cuisine. Laurent Gras, the former chef de cuisine at Alain Ducasse’s restaurants in Paris and Monaco, has introduced a six-course "Tête à Tête" menu, with each course featuring a marriage of opposites—two seemingly disparate ingredients that, deftly combined, produce a harmonious flavor. While hamachi and foie gras, scallop and artichoke, and Arctic char and Cabernet Sauvignon may at first seem strange bedfellows, these artful if unusual parings, upon tasting, make exquisite sense.

XIV

 

Since 2004, when Michael Mina unveiled his namesake restaurant in San Francisco, the Egyptian-born chef has opened another 12 establishments. One of the latest—XIV (323.656.1414, www.xivla.com), which opened late last year in Los Angeles—departs from the tasting menu of trios on which Mina built his reputation: Rather than present a single primary ingredient (such as pork or duck) prepared three different ways, as he has done at his other restaurants, Mina instead designed a menu for XIV that encourages what he calls "social dining," which combines the communal charms of family dining (everyone orders the same thing) with the more elegant presentation of tapas (individual portions are served on beautifully arranged smaller plates). Each table as a group assembles a tasting menu from a seasonal master menu of 35 dishes that might include caviar parfait or A5 Kobe beef served with chanterelles. (For those vegetarians in the group, XIV also offers a vegetarian menu that mirrors the standard selections.) Diners who want more than several small bites of different items can opt to order from the recently introduced à la carte menu, which features such Mina specialties as lobster pot pie and the Kobe burger.

Maison Boulud

 

Just around the corner from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, one finds the very Western Maison Boulud (+86.10.6559.9200, www.danielnyc.com), one of the latest fine-dining establishments from the French-cuisine powerhouse Daniel Boulud. Though Boulud is used to stately settings—his New York flagship inhabits the posh Upper East Side—the China locale is the most impressive of his restaurant stable. The elegant space, open since May 2008, resides in the former U.S. embassy where Henry Kissinger met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on the sly in 1971; it was also once a residence of the Dalai Lama. The neoclassical structure is set back from the urban hubbub in the gated Legation Quarter. Inside, a dramatic entrance punctuated by a sweeping mural and a double staircase does not disappoint—and neither does the food. Some dishes (such as baby-pig confit with daikon or vacherin with green-tea yogurt) incorporate Asian elements. But the menu overall—with a German-tinged Black Forest dessert and Italian angel-hair pasta with sea urchin—bears a more global imprint.

Luce

 

Named for the Super Tuscan wine that the Frescobaldi family of Florence, Italy, produces in partnership with the Mondavi family of Napa Valley, Luce (415.616.6566, www.lucewinerestaurant.com) draws on three distinct cultural influences—Northern Italian, Californian, and French—thanks to the career of peripatetic chef Dominque Crenn. Raised in Versailles, France, she learned from her parents an appreciation of great French cuisine. In 1988 she went to study the culinary arts in San Francisco, where she worked under Jeremiah Tower of Stars and then at Campton Place, among other top restaurants. When she learned that the Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi planned to open a restaurant in the InterContinental San Francisco, she traveled to Tuscany to meet the owners and study Italian fine cuisine. Her menus are sophisticated yet unpretentious, relying mostly on ingredients from the Bay Area. Italian classics, such as a wild-mushroom-and-truffle risotto, share billing with more exotic combinations like Teeccino-and-vanilla-encrusted venison with blackberry compote, asparagus, and spiced chocolate.