Tied for top dog
Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen is the chef ’s fifth Strip restaurant, coming after his Caesars Palace Pub & Grill, a Planet Hollywood burger spot, grab-and-go fish and chips at the Linq Promenade and his fine-dining steakhouse at Paris Las Vegas. That ties him with Las Vegas pioneer Wolfgang Puck for the most restaurants on Las Vegas Boulevard — or it will once Puck’s Spago re-opens at its new Bellagio location. (Puck also has an off-strip restaurant in Downtown Summerlin.)
Ramsay isn’t known for his humility, but a mention of the company he now keeps inspires a certain level of reverence for Puck, who cleared the way for so many of his colleagues in this town — and around the world.
“That guy created the celebrity chef,” Ramsay says of Puck. “It all started with him — that level of show biz, glamour. Look at what he’s done.”
In fact, Ramsay says visiting a Puck restaurant was a highlight of his first trip to the United States.
“I first came to
L.A. in 1994 for the World Cup finals in Pasadena,” Ramsay recalls. “All I wanted to do was get to Spago. And I sat there, couldn’t afford to buy any wine, and I sat there and thought ‘This is amazing.’ I asked if there was any chance if I could meet this guy, and they laughed at me.”
Ramsay is also aware that the next superstar Las Vegas chef could be dining in one of his restaurants or somewhere else on the Strip today.
And he welcomes them.
“I want somebody coming up pushing me in a couple of years time,” he says. “Who’s the next Gordon Ramsay? Who’s the next Wolfgang Puck? That keeps everybody on their toes. And that’s the beauty about Vegas: It’s highly competitive, (and) there’s some amazing chefs.”