Situated on the second floor of the Atlantis, this place has all the trappings of casino cuisine. A long list of steaks and high-end cuts of meat make up half the menu, and for their impressive list of wines, they simply hand you an iPad for you to peruse.
There’s quite a gap between the bread and the appetizers, but the service is attentive and the speed is quite appropriate for a full house on a Friday night.
But an adorable amuse bouche tries to bridge the gap, a cracker-crostini with a shaved beef salad.
The appetizers come, for me this Classic Escargot, which is made exactly as it should be. Six wells of tender snails sit in a soup of butter and pungent garlic. Soak up all the sauce with all six toast points - your taste buds will thank you and your breath will peel the paint of the walls.
The server recommended the Caesar Salad, for reasons I cannot comprehend. It looks like something poured out of a supermarket bag, though the dressing tasted a little better.
At this point I realize that this bistro has a bit a red flag; Beware the boundless menu. At first glance, the wide variety is welcome, but what it translates to is everything good and nothing great.
Their signature Sea Bass is where it starts to show. The fish is cooked properly, but it’s just a little bit fishy, and I can tell it isn’t entirely fresh. The risotto is the highlight here - looks exactly like a stock photo, so creamy with super tender shrimp.
The Cabernet-Braised Short Ribs are also labeled as a signature, but I find them nice but somewhat forgettable. They have a heavy sauce, a rich red wine that savors it up, a fine-dining meat n’ potatoes. Delicious but been done.
Thrillist lauded this bistro for its California cuisine, but I don’t agree with their description. Praised for their emphasis on seasonality, the sheer size of the menu would suggest otherwise. Aside from serving root veggies in the winter and working some string beans into late spring, there are just too many dishes to not buy in bulk. I like them, and I think they’re exactly right for their target audience (the casino-goer population), but if I want fine dining, I would pick something less generic.
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