Giada Brings A Taste Of Italy To The Vegas Strip

Food Network Star and celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis has opened her first restaurant inside The Cromwell hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

Guests enter via an escalator and are greeted at a small podium. Once inside, a huge antipasto bar houses a variety of prepared cheeses, salami, and salads and offers a view of the pizza and bread ovens.

Diners can choose to grab a drink in the cozy lounge before heading to the outdoor patio or main dining room. The ambiance is light and airy with hard wood floors, oval large brass light fixtures, natural lighting, white leather chairs, and panoramic views of the Las Vegas Strip and the Bellagio fountains.

The breadbasket contains homemade focaccia, lemon thyme flatbread and parmesan breadsticks.  Antipasti standouts include artichoke, crab, and sausage arancini; bacon wrapped dates with spicy Italian sausage; pea pesto and crab salad crostini; and a wide variety of cheeses and salami.  There are four pizzas to choose from: a mortadella Bianca; spinach and buffalo ricotta; Margherita; and mozzarella, salami, and oregano.

Main course include a variety of pastas including spaghetti with shrimp and lemon, rigatoni with vegetable Bolognese and a tortellini with pancetta and pea pesto.  Land and sea dishes include a bone in rib eye finished with a sunny side egg, veal chop Milanese, rack of lamb, branzino, and pan roasted salmon. Sides include smashed lemon potatoes, wood grilled asparagus, and sweet corn with spicy sausage.

A four-course tasting menu is a good option to try a little of everything and includes a variety of dishes from the antipasti menu section served family style, a choice of lemon crema spaghetti with shrimp, rigatoni and vegetable Bolognese, or fregolotto with morel mushrooms and baby zucchini for the pasta dishes and lamb, salmon, beef tenderloin, or Swiss chard rolls for the third course. Diners who sample the tasting menu or order off of the main menu choose from a variety of cakes, doughnuts, cookies, and gelato from the elegant dessert cart.

Cocktails pay tribute to the many films Giada's grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis, and include the Barbarella with Tanqueray, orange spice, ginger beer, and lemon; the Blue Velvet with blood orange vodka, Pavan liqueur, and Blue Curacao; and the Conan Destroyer with tequila, tangerine, and basil.