One of the reasons why I like visiting Las Vegas is that the city has some of the best restaurants in the world. On a recent trip to Vegas with my girlfriends, I ate at two well-known steak restaurants in the city. Interestingly, both of these world-class steakhouses were in the same hotel — sort of.
My friends and I stayed at the Delano Hotel, which is actually a hotel-in-a-hotel inside the Mandalay Bay hotel. (There’s also a second hotel-in-a-hotel inside Mandalay Bay, The Four Seasons). The Delano used to be called The Hotel, but the property changed names recently. My guess is that ‘The Hotel’ just wasn’t distinctive enough.
Anyway, the first steakhouse we ate at was Charlie Palmer Steak, in the Four Seasons Hotel in Mandalay Bay. My first impression on walking into the restaurant was that it was very traditional. The lighting was very low and the interior decor was dark. My friends and I were a bit early for our dinner reservation so we sat at the medium sized bar (about 16 seats).
The bartender was very courteous, and somewhat formal, but not in a bad way. I ordered a glass of red wine. It was very good. My friends ordered white wine and a cosmopolitan. They were good too.
After finishing half of our drinks, we walked over to the hostesses and told them we were ready to be seated. The tables and chairs were very traditional, in keeping with the theme of the restaurant.
My friends and I ordered a rib eye steak, Alaskan halibut, and lamb shanks. We also ordered mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach. We all shared with each other. Everything was delicious as we expected.
Overall, I’d give Charlie Palmer a solid 7.7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Put another way, everything was good but not good enough for me to put Charlie Palmer on my must-return restaurant list. Many best-of lists put Charlie Palmer on their top 10 for steakhouses in Vegas, so if you haven’t tried it, you should at some point.
