Chef Pierre Gagnaire
The first time I met chef Pierre Gagnaire was on a cruise ship crossing from Dakar, Senegal to San Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. A “Croisière Gourmande” had been organized with chefs including Jacques Chibois. Alain Dutournier, Michel Bras, and many more. It must have been some time ago, as I think I was still under the legal drinking age!
At the time, I gave Pierre Gagnaire the nickname “The Salvador Dali of Gastronomy,” and it still holds true today. His renderings are creative, dramatic, somewhat crazy, unexpected, phantasmagoric, with a genius touch. But the catch is you either love it or hate it; and always at a high price, just like Dali. A 2005 menu from his eponymous restaurant in Paris I keep in my office offers a perfect illustration: a casserole of chestnuts and topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke), with a crème chocolatée de panais (carrots’ cousin) served with a gâteau de foie blond and truffle, at a staggering € 143!
Like chef Guy Savoy, Pierre Gagnaire was unknown to the American public except for the few who had dined at his restaurant in Paris, but gambled by opening his first American outpost in Las Vegas. At Twist at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, which opened last December at CityCenter, the modern chef took a more classical approach to what he usually masters, and at much more affordable prices. I suspect, and hope, he will gradually let loose and bring more of his innovative panache to The Strip.
In our annual Restaurant Issue Newsletter published in January, we named Twist one of our Top 10 New Restaurants in the country. Will he again follow in the footsteps of Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace and move on to our Top 40 Restaurants in the US? A few more meals will tell.
Take a photo tour of the Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas in GAYOT.com’s gallery.
Keep coming back to GAYOT.com for more Las Vegas Restaurant News, Restaurant Reviews, Culinary Events and Las Vegas Wine Dinners.
-
- Grilled organic salmon with ginger
-
- Homemade bread
-
- Dinning with views of Las Vegas
-
- Twist dining room
-
- The kitchen from the dining room
-
- Kitchen with a view of The Strip
-
- Plated canapés
-
- View from atable
-
- Broccoli salad with egg “mimosa” and red cabbage gelée
-
- Cachaça granité with cucumber marmalade & green apple
-
- Cracked eggshell wall by interior designer Adam Tihany
-
- Elegant dishware
-
- Ganache with ginger and chocolate ice cream
-
- Bolognaise with grilled zucchini, beef carpaccio and black olive
-
- John Dory’s crunchy sauce: toasted brioche, cannelloni beans, marin velouté
-
- John Dory fillet poached in Malabar black pepper-citrus butter with cannelloni beans, marin velouté
-
- Grilled langoustine with TTB sauce and avocado
-
- Intermezzo: cucumber, tomato & pineapple with Kirsch brandy, rhubarb mousse & grapefruit granité
-
- Seared langoustine with Iberico ham and bell pepper
-
- Langoustine tartar with Campari turnip and baby greens
-
- Nelson sablé with meringue & citrus sorbet
-
- Fruit biscuit with seasonal coulis
-
- Langoustine & mousseline perfumed with sherry Manzanilla
-
- Cracked eggshell presentation plate
-
- Grilled prime sirloin with stewed rhubarb & celery, Laetitia Pinot Noir jus & preserved shallot
-
- Private dining room
-
- Quince gelée, bavaroise & chartreuse parfait
-
- Sea scallops & foie gras with squab breast, black olive gelée, sake-apple marmalade & pomegranate seeds
-
- Twist
-
- Wine director Julie Lin in the wine tower
-
- Chef Pierre Gagnaire
