Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/607470
photography by ryan forbes (meat bar, crocodiles); Jill paider (tortilla sacromonte) how baza ar A yeAr After the opening of Bazaar Meat, itS chef, JoSé AndréS, celebrAteS the SeASon with Some clASSicS—And Soon-to-be clASSicS— At one of the moSt decAdent reStAurAntS on the Strip. By sarah feldBerg The frst thing you notice as you enter Bazaar Meat are the pigs. Pale and delicate, they hang from their hind quarters in a brightly lit display case. Their creamy skin arcs down to a dainty snout dangling just over a patch of fake grass. They are darling, these sweet little suckling pigs—and ter- ribly delicious. The pigs are something of a coup for chef José Andrés's SLS meat emporium. After years of working to import the three- or four-week-old pata negra Iberian suckling pigs—the same animals used to make the prized jamón hanging above the charcuterie bar—Andrés received his frst shipment of 50 this fall, just around the time of Bazaar Meat's frst anniversary. "It is huge," he says. "It has been many years working on this." Slow-cooked in a wood-burning oven until the meat is meltingly tender and the skin crackles, the pigs are served by the quarter or, with 24-hours notice, whole—a decadent centerpiece for a family-style holiday feast. But man cannot live on swine alone, so the menu boasts nearly 100 different items to be mixed and matched into your ideal meal: steak tartare prepared tableside, caviar fights, updated Reubens on tiny torpedoes of cheese-flled bread, fresh oysters swathed in applewood smoke and tra- ditional Spanish blood sausage topped with fresh uni come together in a deeply funky surf and turf. The menu refers to the bluefn tuna belly steak and grilled lobster dishes as "meat from the sea," because, as Andrés says, "Meat is everything. A carrot is good meat. A scallop is good meat." And speaking of good meat: Bazaar recently received certifcation to serve Japanese A5 Kobe, the reigning king of the beef world. Order the Kobe eye of the rib—$110 for 4 ounces—and your lusciously marbled and unspeakably juicy steak comes with an authentication ticket, including the animal's lineage and nose print. "What I'm giving is the true essence of the goodness of the earth that we celebrate, one meat at a time," says Andrés. "That's what we do at Bazaar Meat different than anybody else. And it's not easy, but because we have good ingredients, I think that we're achieving some level of success." It certainly feels that way inside the Philippe Starck–designed dining room, where chrome crocodile heads watch steaks sear over open fames and tableside carts turn dinner into a show. The food may be refned, but the atmosphere is more playful than proper, like an exceed- ingly cool dinner party where your host serves some of the most sought-after ingredients on the planet. And if Andrés has his way, you'll soon fnd lambs on his list of ungettable gets. "We're working on it," the chef says. "A true baby lamb, it changes your life forever." SLS Las Vegas; 855-761-7757; slslasvegas.com V just offal José's tortilla sacromonte Sacred, profane, and perfectly Bazaar. José Andrés doesn't care if you order the tortilla Sacromonte at his SLS "meat- house." He didn't put the dish—a rustic, Spanish-style omelet topped with kidneys, sweetbreads and bone mar- row—on the menu for you. "This is the kind of thing I put on the menu for myself and my buddies," he says. Which is precisely the reason you should order it. With a soft egg on top, sweet caramelized onions, and perfectly cooked offal, the dish is a rich, decadent nod to the Gypsy neighborhood of Sacromonte, in Granada, and an entry-level introduc- tion to offal that manages to make all the scary bits glori- ously meaty and delicious. Andrés loves the dish so much, he even featured it on the NBC show Hannibal, for which he served as culinary consultant. But seriously, don't order it. José doesn't care. José Andrés's paean to the carnivorous features a meat bar and chrome crocodile heads as décor. TasTe Best eats 86 vegasmagazine.com