New Bacchanal Buffet Readies to Capture “Best Las Vegas Buffet” Title at Caesars Palace
The buffet at Caesars Palace is about to get a new name, Bacchanal Buffet, along with a massive renovation, and even more importantly, it intends to turn your expectations about Las Vegas buffets upside down when it opens in September, 2012.
As a matter of fact, we might need to start putting quotation marks around “buffet,” because from what we’re hearing about the Bacchanal Buffet, it’s going to be less like a traditional Vegas buffet and more of an internationally-inspired food festival that happens to be served buffet-style.
This ain't your grandpa's lox and bagel, but we get the feeling he's going to dig it.
We breached security to capture a first look at some of the buffet’s offerings at a tasting for hotel executives. There were dozens of dishes being showcased, and that was just for breakfast alone. The Bacchanal Buffet will feature, wait for it, more than 500 individual menu items. Dinner alone will have 300 menu items, with close to 100 being served for breakfast.
We’ll give you a moment to process that. Go on. We’ll wait.
Oh, and the new buffet spans 25,000 square feet. Translation: OMG.
A little authentic breakfast dim sum. Thank you, dim sum chefs, for spending years learning to make these so this blog can devour them in just under four seconds.
Beyond those impressive numbers, and the Bacchanal Buffet’s $17 million cost, what makes it special? For starters, the menu has been created by an international collection of acclaimed chefs, many of whom have trained in Michelin Star-winning kitchens.
We caught up with Executive Chef Scott Green (below) at the tasting, the man behind the buffet’s colossal menu, who said, “The idea, simply, is to combine nine restaurants into one. All of the chefs have a lot of restaurant background, so we bring a true restaurant feel to the buffet. You might say it’s a large offering of restaurant-quality food.”
We would entrust any of our favorite buffet dishes to Executive Chef Scott Green and his well-toned forearms.
Chef Green continued, “It’s a very home-style presentation and feel, yet there’s a lot of influence from gourmet restaurants around town, including Guy Savoy here at Caesars Palace. That French influence is definitely here. We also have a wealth of experience brought by our amazing Asian chefs from our Caesars restaurants. We have a great Mexican chef from the Rio working with us, too. We called upon the expertise of a lot of contributors in terms of the menu development and ingredient selection. All this was useful in driving the quality aspect home.”
Shrimp and grits. Don't ask, just eat. If you can't believe what you read on the Internet, what can you believe?
Green’s seen and done it all when it comes to massive culinary undertakings, including creating and launching up to 10 restaurants at once on cruise ships. “You have to be methodical. It sounds more difficult than it is.” Yeah, right!
When we forced Chef Green to brag about just one item on the buffet’s menu, he picked the red velvet pancakes. “They’re absolutely amazing,” he claims. Coming in a close second is mini-sliders off a wood-burning grill. Try finding a wood-burning grill at another Vegas buffet. We double-dare you.
Talk about exotic dishes! We kid. Dutch babies are actually German pancakes. We almost had you there for a second, though.
Photos of the new buffet’s interior aren’t available yet, but should make their debut in early September.
Lovers of interior design will swoon over the fact the buffet will have: 10 different chair designs using 17 different fabrics, as well as 3,607 glass jars filled with food products and 16,027 bowls, plates and glasses adorning the walls. Yes, someone-not-this-blog counted them.
Bacchanal Buffet was designed by a Japanese-based firm, Super Potato. Super Potato has designed a number of venues in Las Vegas, the names of which this blog would recite were it not for the fact that might take “research” or even “the exertion of effort.”
As for the buffet’s name, “bacchanalia” were originally wild parties devoted to the Greco-Roman god Bacchus (street name, Dionysus), the god of wine. These days, the term denotes revelry.
Bacchanal trivia: There was actually a restaurant at Caesars Palace named Bacchanal, which closed in 2000.
Fact: This blog has never tasted anything at a restaurant that didn't benefit greatly from being served in an adorable little skillet.
The Bacchanal Buffet will be open daily, 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., and the prices of this ginormous (that’s the technical term) feast might surprise you. Breakfast is just $19.99, lunch is $24.99 and dinner is $39.99.
In case you wondered, the Bacchanal Buffet is included in the popular Buffet of Buffets (all-access to multiple Sin City buffets for 24 hours at hotels in the Caesars Entertainment family), with addition a relatively painless $10 surcharge. The Buffet of Buffet price is $44.99. Learn more.
There’s more news to come about Bacchanal Buffet and all the latest restaurant happenings at Caesars Palace, so check back often for succulent updates. Yes, they’ll be succulent. That’s how this blog rolls.
