I was married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas.
His name was Norm.
Both of those sentences are true. We’ll get back to them shortly.
For years, I had Las Vegas all wrong. I thought it was tacky showgirls, mobster-run casinos, bad buffets, cheesy lounge acts, and acres of flashing lights designed to separate a man from his money before he realized the free drink wasn’t really free.
And for a long time, that’s what it was.
The wedding story starts in 1988, when I met my future wife. Neither of us wanted to get married. My first marriage had lasted eleven months and left me with a sour impression of the institution. On an early date, I told her that if I ever got married again—which I wouldn’t—it would be by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. She said that was fine, because she never wanted to get married anyway.
Five years later, we were married by Norm the Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. My wife would want me to clarify that we were really married the day before by my uncle, an Episcopal priest, at our church in Hattiesburg. The Vegas ceremony was a matter of honor. Keeping my word cost extra, too — the chapel charged me for a witness. I paid it. A man keeps his word.
We spent one night at the Excalibur—nearly new then, and cheaper than the wedding—then flew to Aspen for a proper honeymoon.
In the 1990s, Vegas started importing celebrity chefs, to the degree celebrity chefs existed then. Wolfgang Puck was early. Spago in the Forum Shops at Caesars felt like a big deal. Then came a wave of famous restaurants from New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles that had the name on the door and the look of the original but didn’t execute on food or service. They were tribute acts. Norm in a jumpsuit.
That has changed. Completely.
The restaurants in Las Vegas today—at least the ones whose originals I’ve eaten in back in New York or Chicago—are, almost every one of them, as good as the mothership. The cooking and the service in that town right now are as good as anywhere in America.
Here’s the funny part: the casinos couldn’t care less that I’m in the building. I don’t drink, and I don’t gamble. Somewhere in a sub-basement on the Strip, a computer has probably reviewed my file — no slots, no blackjack, no cocktails, eleven restaurants in three days — and flagged me as the least valuable customer in Nevada. No comps are coming my way. The pit bosses will never learn my name. The computer wouldn’t be wrong. But I’ve spent 45 years in the restaurant business, and I’m a student of it. Give me a free afternoon and I’ll spend it walking through concepts, studying the menus, the systems, the way a server moves through a dining room. To have that many restaurants inside such a small footprint—the Venetian, Caesars, the MGM concepts—is a gift for someone wired the way I am. Vegas is the greatest field trip in American food.
The Cosmopolitan has been my Las Vegas home away from home for the past decade. That started when David Chang brought Momofuku to the property. My thinking was simple: any hotel that could land the hottest name in New York at the time was serious about restaurants. I was right. The Cosmopolitan has the kind of restaurant collection that keeps a non-gambling, non-drinking customer like me coming back.
This particular trip had a purpose. My wife’s father passed away last week, and getting her out of town for a few days seemed like the right medicine. Not to avoid grief. That never works. Grief packs its own suitcase and travels with you. But a change of scenery can help. Laughter can help. A good meal can help. A little wonder can help.
So I booked 72 hours wall to wall—lunch and dinner every day, an afternoon show, an evening show. Some nights we walked into a theater as the lights went down, walked out straight to a dinner reservation, and walked from the table to another show with minutes to spare. It was busy. That was the point.
For three days, we laughed. We ate well. We watched people who had spent their entire lives perfecting their craft. And for a little while, the heaviness back home didn’t feel quite as heavy.
That’s hospitality at its best.
It doesn’t erase pain. It gives people a place to set it down for a few hours. I’ve spent my whole career on the giving end of that trade. It took a hard week, in a town I once wrote off, to remind me what it feels like to be on the receiving end.
The shows: Mac King’s comedy magic at the Excalibur got us started—my first time back in that building since the honeymoon. Thirty-three years later, I walked back through those doors holding the same hand, in a heavier week, and the joke we started there felt like the most serious promise I ever made. Day two: Frederic Da Silva’s “Paranormal” mind-reading show, which I’ve now seen five times, and he impresses me every time. Piff the Magic Dragon at the Flamingo was my wife’s favorite show of the trip—with July 4th fireworks as the encore. Somewhere in the middle of that show I heard my wife laugh — really laugh — for the first time in two weeks, and that was worth more than anything else on the itinerary. Day three: Marc Savard’s comedy hypnosis. Hypnotists have had my number since one played my freshman dorm in college.
The food: Amaya at the Cosmopolitan is one of my favorite modern Mexican restaurants in the country, running maybe a half-step behind Frontera Grill in Chicago. Red Plate, also in the Cosmopolitan, might be the finest Chinese restaurant I’ve ever eaten in. Dinner at CUT, Wolfgang Puck’s steakhouse at the Venetian, was excellent—full circle, back to the man who started this whole migration. The last dinner was Zuma, back home at the Cosmopolitan, a Japanese concept that’s as good to look at as it is to eat in.
Which brings me to the lesson of the weekend. Las Vegas was built on gaming. It runs on entertainment now—the kind on a stage and the kind on a plate. By the Gaming Control Board’s own count, Nevada casinos took in $30.8 billion last fiscal year, and only about a third of it came from gaming — which means the least valuable customer in Nevada, and everyone like him, is covering most of the bill. The showgirls gave way to magicians and hypnotists. The buffets gave way to some of the best kitchens in the country. The tribute-act restaurants became headliners.
Thirty-three years ago, a man in a rhinestone jumpsuit stood in a Las Vegas wedding chapel and pronounced us husband and wife. I figured the ceremony was a joke, the city was a gimmick, and neither one would ever be taken too seriously.
I was wrong.
The marriage endured.
The city evolved.
And both turned out to be far more meaningful than I ever expected.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Onward.
Amalfi Lemon Cake
1 ¼ cup + ½ cup Sugar
½ lb. Unsalted butter
4 each Whole large eggs
½ tsp Kosher salt
1 1/3 cup Cake flour
1 ½ TB Baking powder
½ cup Whole milk
½ cup Hazelnuts, toasted and chopped fine
1 cup Warm water
Zest and juice of 3 lemons
Preheat oven to 300.
Combine the butter and 1 1/4 cup sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until a soft cream is formed, about 4-5 minutes.
Reduce to medium speed and add eggs one at a time just long enough to incorporate each. Be careful not to over mix the eggs
Separately, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, lemon zest and hazelnuts. Return the mixer to medium speed and alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk. Continue mixing until the batter is light and airy, about 3-4 minutes.
Grease the surface of a fluted cake pan (Bundt pan) and lightly dust with flour. Shake off any excess flour before adding the cake batter. Cook for 25-30 minutes.
While the cake is baking, combine the fresh lemon juice, warm water and 1/2 cup sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk until sugar is dissolved. When the cake is finished baking, allow it to rest at room temperature for 2 hours. After 2 hours, pour a quarter of the lemonade mixture over the cake every 10 minutes. After the third time, remove the cake from the pan and pour the remaining lemonade mixture over the top of the cake.
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)