Las Vegas, Nevada

Once a vast wasteland of buffets, Las Vegas has come of age in dining and drinking. Added to the list of celebrities are some of the top names in the culinary world. Visitors now have their choice of fine dining experiences, both on and off the strip.

The Strip

Las Vegas and especially the Strip has quickly become a hotbed of upscale, fine dining establishments, attracting world-class celebrity chefs from all corners of the globe. Famous for his California-style food and original restaurants, Wolfgang Puck has graced the city with several ventures. One of his establishments, Postrio, located inside the Venetian Hotel provides the romantic atmosphere of a genuine bistro, along with private rooms. If you like a fine dining experience with a spectacular view, ascend to the top of the Stratosphere Tower for an evening at the Top of the World Restaurant. There is not a bad seat in the house since the room slowly rotates one complete turn each hour. Bouchon, is world renowned chef Thomas Keller's Vegas venture, offering the very best French bistro cuisine inside the Venetian Resort & Casino. Another celebrity chef who has made himself a home in Las Vegas is Bobby Flay, whose Mesa Grill inside Caesars Palace Hotel Casino brings real southwestern flavor to Sin City. If you're in the mood for something a little more exotic, try Pearl at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino to sample the flavors of the far east. Visiting the Mohave Desert does not preclude enjoying fine seafood. Chef Emeril Lagasse produces award winning lobster, fish and crab delights at Emeril's New Orleans Fish House inside the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. Awards have also been garnered by the Rosewood Grille, multiple winner of the "Award of Excellence" by Wine Spectator Magazine.

If you rather have quantity and quality, there are some great buffets on the Strip. In fact, buffets are less expensive than fine dinning and you can have all-you-can-eat lobster, steak and dessert for one price. Some of the best, though rather expensive, buffets are on the Strip. Le Village Buffet can be found at Paris Las Vegas, where you can sample as much as you can stomach, all from various regions of France. For a more upscale all-you-can-eat experience, it doesn't get much classier than The Buffet at the Bellagio, complete with a champagne brunch on weekends. The Buffet at Wynn also boasts numerous cooking stations, including sushi, risotto and of course, dessert. Cravings, located in the Mirage Hotel is a colorful, contemporary restaurant featuring such international delicacies as gelato and dim sum. The Treasure Island Buffet is a tried and true classic, which also boasts an impressive Sunday brunch buffet. Another brunch hotspot is Sterling Brunch at Bally's Casino Resort. While it is only open for Sunday brunch, and is one of the more pricey buffets, it is well worth the effort and money.

Being one of the entertainment capitals of the world, Las Vegas has no shortage of theme restaurants. Perhaps you'd be tickled by dining with a cyborg from the Terminator, or Freddy from Friday the 13th. If so, drop in at Planet Hollywood where you will see authentic movie props and maybe a real star or two. You don't need to travel to the jungles of South America to get a taste of exotic plants and animals, instead you can just pop into the Rainforest Cafe. Le Provencal inside Paris Las Vegas will transport you to a small European village, without ever leaving the Strip! For something a little more casual, Burger Bar serves up everything burger, right down to the dessert.

Just like the action never stops in Vegas, there's also a lot of restaurants that go round the clock with you, so no matter what the time, you can always find something to satisfy your appetite. Raffles Cafe at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino is a casual, tropical restaurant with a diverse menu to satisfy any craving at any time. At Caesars Palace Hotel Casino the Augustus Café also has diverse offerings on the menu, with breakfast being the specialty any time of day or night. Le Cafe Ile St. Louis has all the atmosphere of a Parisian sidewalk cafe, offering French and American specialties, and the Grand Lux Cafe offers over 20 desserts to satiate any late night sweet tooth yearnings. Café Bellagio is an upscale coffee shop with gorgeous views any time of day.

If you'd like to save some money for the slots and shows, there are several cheap places to grab a meal. For breakfast, dinner or anytime in between, head to Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino and try Planet Dailies to experience the coffee shop of the future. There are several good dining options at the Miracle Mile Shops @ Planet Hollywood, like Ocean One Bar & Grille, which will really suit your budget. Backstage Deli at the Luxor is a kosher deli that will make you feel like you've been transported to New York, don't miss their famous triple decker sandwiches. If you'd rather grab a burger Cheeseburger Las Vegas will to save you some money for the slots and you can top your burger with almost anything you could think of. Noodles can give you a taste of Asia without the cost of getting there. They also have dim sum on weekends. Ready for something sweet? Le Creperie can help, with numerous different dessert crepes, as well as savory options for dinner.

Downtown

Downtown Las Vegas has both historical and new restaurants. Although you'll still have to deal with the crowds, the prices will be more reasonable than on the Strip. If you want casual fine dining Second Street Grille is a great place to have American cuisine. Grotto Ristorante at the Golden Nugget Hotel Casino is an Italian restaurant that uses only the freshest ingredients. Binion's Ranch Steak House is the perfect place to have quality steak or seafood, make sure you try the Chicken Fried Lobster. If you just want a snack head to Sidebar, it was voted the best martini in Las Vegas and has great fried calamari.

Off the Strip

If you don't want to deal with the crowds and the prices of the Strip or downtown Las Vegas, the restaurants off the Strip have plenty of great choices. Terrible Mike's at the Orleans Hotel Casino is a great place to fill up on burgers and sandwiches without cleaning out your wallet. For a taste of south of the border, head to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino to Pink Taco, where you can get tacos, burritos and other Mexican favorites.

Las Vegas has always been known for its numerous, affordable buffets. And while the days of the 99 cent all-you-can-eat prime rib may be gone, there are endless, quality options available. The Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino features two buffets, the award winning Carnival World Buffet and Village Seafood Buffet, both extremely popular with tourists and locals alike. Ports o' Call Buffet at the Gold Coast Hotel Casino is another local favorite, with seven live cooking stations.

If music is more your cup of tea, you can dine with the world's largest guitar at the Hard Rock Cafe. Mr. Lucky's 24/7 Cafe at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino serves up classics like pizza and burgers with a '50's diner feel. For a truly unique dining experience, head to Quark's Bar & Restaurant at the Las Vegas Hilton for a meal that is out of this world.

Outside the City

If you need a break from hustle and bustle of the Las Vegas you can find the real deals outside the city. Go to Amigo's Mexican Cantina for a Mexican meal paired with a margarita. Gold Rush Cafe is a family friendly restaurant with reasonable prices. If you want an all-you-can-eat option try the international buffet is the Feast Around the World Buffet, located a little ways outside the city at the Green Valley Ranch Resort Spa & Casino.

From its earliest beginnings, Las Vegas has catered to the traveler. A nomadic tribe of Indians called the Paiutes settled the area around the turn of the last millennium and occupied most of the area from Mt. Charleston to the Colorado River. Several traders and explorers including Jedediah Smith in 1826 and John C. Fremont in 1844 traveled through the area and made contact with the Paiutes. By 1851, Mormon president, Brigham Young, in his endeavor to create the State of Deseret stretching from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, made Las Vegas one of his important stopovers. To this end, he sent missionaries to colonize the region and convert the Paiute. The location they selected to establish their fort was on a promontory overlooking the Las Vegas Valley, which is now the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington. The Old Mormon Fort still has remnants of its original building. Eventually the settlement disbanded and most of the Mormon settlers returned to Utah.

However, a mining boom at nearby Mt. Potosi fostered a new influx of travelers, mainly miners who used Las Vegas as a center for food and supplies. There was no permanent settlement there until 1865, when a group of prospectors, including Octavius Decatur Gass, acquired the rights to the Old Mormon Fort. For the rest of that decade, Gass ran a prosperous business at the Fort, rebuilding many of the structures and farming the land, offering food and shelter to the travelers on the "Old Mormon Trail" (the Salt Lake-Los Angeles wagon road), as well as offering provisions to the nearby miners. Gass was less of a businessman than a prospector at heart and eventually bad business deals forced him to turn the property over to Archibald Stewart and his wife, Helen, who had only intended to stay there temporarily. However, after a feud at nearby Kiel Ranch, which ended in the murder of Stewart, his widow stayed on to run the ranch and see it prosper. This period was from 1882 to 1902, when she sold the ranch to Montana Senator William Clark. Clark was instrumental in overseeing the establishment of the railroad from Utah to California. Acquiring the rights to the Ranch and its abundant water supply ensured that Las Vegas was to become a major stop for railroad travelers. In 1905 an ad was placed in prominent major newspapers concerning "first class inside lots" going for as little as 200 dollars a piece in Clark's Las Vegas Townsite. This encouraged squatters and investors alike, and the auction on May 15, 1905 produced a flurry of sales. Soon hotels and homes sprouted up all along the main downtown area of Fremont Street, as well as schools, a hospital and other essential businesses such as ice plants.

Las Vegas essentially thrived for the next 20 years because of the railroad; it played host to travelers by providing entertainment and liquor. The liquor was restricted to a certain area, Blocks 16 and 17. This area naturally evolved into a red light district as well. During Prohibition, this section was especially popular. During this period, the city founders realized that as the roads were improved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, this would promote more tourism and they began to build ranches to appeal to the potential visitors. Kiel Ranch became a popular dude ranch and gained notoriety as a place where people came to wait out their quicky Nevada divorces. In 1931, the combined advent of the building of Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover), the creation of Boulder City plus the legalization of gambling, ensured a new boom in the prosperity of southern Nevada.

World War II increased the Las Vegas economy even more. In 1940, an air base was established (now known as Nellis Air Force Base) in the northeast part of town. A huge plant, Basic Magnesium, was built for the manufacture of bullets and bomb casings, etc. The plant was instrumental in the establishment of Henderson, just southeast of Las Vegas and now one of the fastest-growing communities in Nevada. In the early 1950s a new kind of entertainment was born: watching the atomic bomb testing, which took place at the nuclear test site, just 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas. A famous Life Magazine photo captured one of the mushroom clouds rising above the waving cowboy, "Vegas Vic" of Fremont Street. In fact, the opening of the now closed Desert Inn was timed to coincide with one of the blasts.

In recent decades the hotel industry has re-invented itself again and again. Just when everyone was predicting a severe depression, especially when Atlantic City emerged as a gambling destination in the early 80s, Las Vegas managed to come up with a new twist. Even today, with the proliferation of gambling in many of the 50 states, Las Vegas only seems to become more popular. Theme hotels have become abundant, starting with the Mirage in the late 80s, followed by the Excalibur, Treasure Island, Luxor and the MGM Grand. More and more soon popped up including the Stratosphere, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, Paris Las Vegas, Venetian, Mandalay Bay and many more. When will the boom end?