Rosemary's Restaurant in Las Vegas is not one of the typical high-end restaurants that have sprung up in the city over the past 10 to 12 years. The biggest difference is that it is not connected to or in a major hotel/casino on the Strip. Rosemary's is about 10 miles from the Strip out on West Sahara (see map), so it's a haul either via cab or car when you go. I'd heard about Rosemary's Restaurant from a number of people and had wanted to go there when we were out there for CES last year. However, with the normal large group of people in our company who usually dine out together, it was difficult to get a table at the last minute. This year I made reservations a few days in advance of us going out to Las Vegas.
There's a little bit of a local connection between the Quad Cities and Rosemary's owner and head chef, Michael Jordan. Jordan was raised in Bettendorf, IA and learned how to cook while working in local restaurants as a teen. Jordan's culinary path eventually took him to New Orleans where he hooked up with the legendary Emeril Lagasse. When Lagasse opened the New Orleans Fish House in the MGM Grand in the mid-90's, Lagasse tabbed Jordan to run the place. It quickly became known as having the best seafood in Las Vegas. (I ate there about 12 years ago and while it was very good, I was not blown away by the food like I thought I'd be.)
Encouraged by friends and patrons, Michael Jordan and his wife, Wendy (right), left Emeril's Fish House in 1999 and opened up a restaurant in Rio. But the Jordan's weren't happy with the arrangements at Rio, so they moved to their present day location in a small strip mall in western Las Vegas in 2000. Almost immediately, it became a favorite of local food critics and aficionados. Rosemary's has racked up countless awards and recommendations for over 10 years. I was very excited to have the chance to eat there.
The reservationist at Rosemary's took my phone number and credit card number when I made the reservations about five days before we visited. We had until 2 p.m. of the day we were to visit Rosemary's to cancel or a $75 dollar per person charge would be charged to my card. She called again the morning of our visit to make sure that we were still coming. I told her that instead of 10 people, we would only have nine. She said that wouldn't be a problem.
It was a 25 minute drive through traffic from the Mirage, where we stayed this year, to Rosemary's. In addition to five of my colleagues from my company, we also had Gerard Chretian, the managing director for Focal Loudspeakers; Dominic Baker, the chief engineer and international sales manager for Focal; and Dominic's new assistant, Pierre, with us. Gerard and Dominic eat in some world-class restaurants during their travels, and it turns out that Pierre grew up in a family that had both culinary and wine backgrounds. I was hoping beyond hope that Rosemary's would not let us down.
We were seated at a table in the main dining room and given our menus for the evening. We were immediately served two potato bread rolls that had been baked with butter and herbs on the top. Even though I was the point man for the evening, I deferred the wine list to my colleague, Ian, who has a good eye for Italian wines; and to Pierre who has lived in nearly every region of France during his life. My colleague, Jon, is a California native and is well-versed in some of the finer and more obscure California wines. I was more interested in the food.
Rosemary's features a prix fixe menu that allows you to select three items - appetizer, salad, and main entree - for a fixed $55 dollar price per person. That wasn't going to be hard to do as they had a number of delectable appetizers to choose from. The first thing on the appeitzer list was something called Hugo's Texas BBQ Shrimp - grilled large shrimp covered in a tangy barbecue sauce and served on a bed of slaw made with Maytag Blue Cheese. In fact, you could tell that Jordan was paying homage to his Iowa roots as a handful of appetizers and entrees featured the Maytag Blue Cheese that is made in my hometown of Newton, IA. Someone at the other end of the table immediately ordered up a couple orders of the BBQ Shrimp for the table to eat as many of us were famished.
I noticed that they also had a seared foie gras on the menu. It had been quite some time since I'd had foie gras - probably during a trip to France - so I was sort of interested in that. Foie gras was part of the prix fixe menu, but at a $15 dollar premium. I thought that would be a good deal.
Rosemary's menu offers a little bit of Southern and New Orleans-style cooking, along with a hearty dose of Midwestern flair. The menu had seafood, pork, beef and chicken dishes to choose from. It's rather interesting to eat with Europeans as I've found that nearly every meal they go for beef. Rare beef. And that's what everyone at the table ended up having - beef.
Five of the nine people at the table got Rosemary's signature Creole grilled prime ribeye - a large chunk of prime ribeye seasoned with Creole spices, grilled to taste and topped with red onion straws and a homemade steak sauce that was more of a gravy than a steak sauce.
My colleagues, Simon and Todd, went with the grilled veal tenderloin - a tender veal loin, grilled and then cut into strips, served with sauteed asparagus, proscuitto and mushrooms, and then topped with a garlic reduction sauce. That sounded yummy.
Ian and I went with the roasted filet of beef - a 10 oz beef tenderloin filet, oven-roasted and served with horseradish-encrusted souffle potatoes, grilled asparagus and topped with an onion marmalade. As part of the prix fixe menu I decided to parttake in, I also ordered the foie gras and also got a Caesar's salad.
Ian picked out the first wine of the evening, a Charles Audoin Marsannay Cuvee Marie Pinot Noir. It was a very light, yet flavorful wine to have with our appetizers. And speaking of appetizers, my foie gras was very good. It was far from being the best foie gras I ever had (that was at a restaurant outside of Paris about seven years ago), but it was still a wonderful treat to have this particular evening.
Rosemary's also features a number of works of art around the restaurant. They have one wing of the restaurant where they feature paintings and works of selected artists on a rotating basis. This portrait is just as you come into the restaurant and is of Wendy Jordan's mother, Rosemary - the restaurant's namesake - when she was a little girl.
Being that Michael Jordan was a Quad City native, I was hoping that I'd have a chance to meet him. However, I was told that he was not in that evening. "He usually takes a couple nights off during the week," our waiter said. "Tonight just happens to be one of those nights." That was sort of disappointing.
Rosemary's also gained a little bit of notoriety as being the place where O.J. Simpson dined for the last time as a free man the night before he was sentenced to prison in 2008. (Click here to read the story.) A couple of the guys in our group thought it was sort of cool in a pop-culture kind of thing. O.J. dined in the bar area on a couple appetizer plates that evening. To go from Rosemary's to prison food for the next ten years or so was an interesting dichotomy.
We let Pierre pick out the second bottle of the evening - a Philipe Livera Grevey-Chambertin en Vosne pinot noir that he was very familiar with. He said he lived not far from the Cote du Nuits region in the French province of Burgundy and said that he knew Philipe Livera, the vintner and winemaker. Actually, it was much heavier and not as good as the Charles Audoin Marsannay that we had earlier.
It wasn't long before they brought out my Caesar's salad. It was pretty good, too. I liked the dressing and they had two large anchovy strips across the top of the salad. Once again, it didn't knock my socks off, but it was serviceable.
Service and presentation is big at Rosemary's. When our main entrees came, they were brought out by a group of waiters. On cue, each of us had our plates served to us from the left (empty or dirty dishes were removed to the right). When my tenderloin filet was served, the waiter dumped the steak on the table. The onion marmalade fell off the top and onto the table cloth. He immediately offered to get me another steak. I said the one that I had would be fine as I picked it up and placed it back on the three asparagus spears.
The evening went downhill from there. And quickly.
Ian ordered an Alta Vina Ardanza Reserve Spanish rioja before we were served our entrees. For some reason, the sommelier either forgot about our wine or was distracted into doing something else. Our food was halfway gone before the bottle showed up. We had hoped to have it open, poured and breathing well before our main entrees showed up.
A couple guys at the other end of our table had also ordered a couple of sides - Southern style hush puppies and an order of Hoppin' John (blackeyed peas with ham, peppers and rice). For some reason, those sides didn't show up to the table until our meal was almost completely over.
As for the food, my filet was good. It was cooked a little more medium-rare than rare, but that was OK. Not the best steak I ever had, but good, nonetheless. The horseradish souffle potatoes consisted of three dinky, football shaped objects that were literally gone in three bites. The grilled asparagus was OK.
My colleagues who had the veal tenderloins proclaimed it to be good. Simon thought his was a little dry and maybe a tad overcooked, but he said there wasn't much to complain about.
However, the five guys who got the grilled prime ribeye - no one was happy. It had to do with the steak sauce. My colleagues complained the sauce was sweet and too overpowering for the meat. Jon was seated next to me and the prime ribeye came with a side of their Carolina quick grits and I tried a bite of the grits with the sauce just to check out the sauce. Ugh! They were right. It WAS overpowering. It was way too sweet for my taste. In fact, it sort of reminded me of the Marsala sauce I had recently at Fried Green Tomatoes in Galena - on the Veal Marsala that reminded me of my grandmother's Swiss steak.
The prime ribeyes were cooked to everyone's liking, but the sauce killed the overall taste. It was a huge disappointment to all involved. It was a disappointment to me as I was the one who picked out the place.
It was getting late, we were getting a little drunk and we were all very tired from a couple nights of little sleep coming up to the meal at Rosemary's. The waiter came by to ask if we wanted any dessert, but no one wanted anything more. Ian asked for the check and the waiter went away.
Ian went outside for a smoke and one of the other waiters that had helped our head waiter came by the table. He asked if he could get anyone anything else and I said, "We're just waiting on our check." He said he would get it for us.
Another 10 minutes passed. I caught the attention of our head waiter and asked for the check. He said, "It's coming right up, sir."
By this time, Ian had come back in from having a smoke and he said, "We haven't gotten the check yet?" Nope.
A few of the guys decided to get up and go outside for some fresh air while I waited - overly patiently - for the check. I caught the attention of the second waiter and said, "Is there some sort of problem with our check? We're ready to go!" He said he'd find out what the hold-up was.
After nearly another 10 minutes, the head waiter brought out the check. He had already affixed an 18% gratuity to the bill. After waiting that long for the check, I was going to knock my normal 20% down to as little as 12%. I was not a happy camper.
There was a lot of grousing and complaining on the ride back to the Mirage. The consensus - including me - was that it was not worth the ride out to Rosemary's. Although I was OK with my steak, I was disappointed for the guys who got the prime ribeye. To a man, they all thought it was not very good.
About halfway back to the hotel, my cellphone rang. It was a 702 area code - Las Vegas. It was the reservationist from Rosemary's. I had left my credit card at the restaurant. Crap! I told her that I was going to let the guys off at the hotel and I'd be back out there before 11 p.m. She said she'd have it for me up front.
I dropped the group off at the Mirage and even though a couple guys volunteered to go back out to Rosemary's with me to pick up my credit card, I told them to go to bed. It was my mistake, no use torturing anybody else for my brain fart.
Traffic along the strip was horrible, even at 10:30 at night on a Thursday evening. They were doing some street work along the strip and it was a bottle neck. Add to that, the Las Vegas police had a car stopped in front of Treasure Island and were doing a thorough search of the car. I finally got up to Sahara and turned west for the 10 mile drive back out to Rosemary's.
I pulled into Rosemary's right at 11 p.m. They were still open and I parked out front, kept the SUV I was driving running and walked in. No one was at the host stand and there was a bartender talking to someone at the bar. Finally, the head waiter for our table showed up and I said, "I evidently left my credit card here. She called me and said it would be up front."
The waiter looked all through the drawers at the host stand, under papers, menus, all over the place. He asked the bartender if he knew anything about my card. The bartender was clueless. This whole time, the SUV is running out front with the doors unlocked and the motor running. I could see some derelict walking by at 11 p.m. and jumping into the truck and pulling away. And Las Vegas is full of derelicts.
After about five minutes of looking, the sommelier came up front and asked if he could help. The waiter said, "This gentleman left his credit card here and they told him it would be up front. I can't find it anywhere."
The sommelier said, "Ah! I've got it back in the safe." He rushed toward the back of the restaurant and I waited up front by the door with one eye on the still running SUV outside. What should have been a 30 second stop had turned into nearly 10 minutes before the sommelier finally showed up with my credit card. "Sorry for the delay, sir. I had to help someone for a bit."
I was just seething as I made my way back to the hotel, tired and drawn out from the experience.
After I returned home, I received a call from someone from Rosemary's Restaurant - a lady doing some follow up wanting to know how our experience was. I didn't hold back. I told her about the service and how it quickly went downhill later in the evening. I told her about the hold ups with the wine and the sides that we'd ordered. I told her that the guys who got the ribeyes were not happy with the meal, mainly due to the sauce which was not very good. I told her that we had to wait nearly 30 minutes for our check after we'd initially asked for it. I said, "The service was not worth the 18% gratuity they automatically put on the bill due to our larger group." Then I told her how I had to wait for nearly 10 minutes while they searched for and found my credit card.
The whole time she was telling me how sorry she was and how she was going to report these transgressions to the owner. I said, "Yes, the owner. He wasn't there that evening. I live in his hometown and was hoping that the experience of dining at Rosemary's was all that I heard it could be and more. But I have to say that I was very disappointed."
She asked, "Will you be back out in Las Vegas at some point?" I told her that we would most likely be back out there for CES in 2011. She then asked, "Would you consider coming back to our restaurant."
I said, "It was a consensus among our group that for the price, the service glitches and the taste of the food, that it was not worth the long trip from the Strip. Yes, I will consider coming back, but that's about it."
In a place like Las Vegas where there are now a large number of very good to world class restaurants to choose from (which wasn't the case as little as 20 years ago), you've got to be on top of your game each and every night. Unfortunately, Rosemary's Restaurant didn't deliver on the promise of great food and great service. Although they've won countless awards over the years, that particular evening they certainly didn't come close to hitting the level they've obviously achieved in the past. My meal was very good, but not great. But everything else was rather disappointing as a whole. For that, we have probably crossed Rosemary's ResMichael Jordan said the closure of the restaurant that opened for business in May 1999 was "very tough."
He said there wasn't one precipitating event, but a slow progression, tied to the lingering dismal state of Las Vegas' economy.
"A whole lot of little things added up to a big one," Jordan said. "We always kept hoping it was going to make that turn. It was a hard choice, thinking about our family and our kids," who, at 14 and 9, have grown up with Rosemary's. "We were moving toward a point of really jeopardizing ourselves."
Rosemary's -- which was named for his mother -- had had three revenue streams: a catering division, a wing for private parties and the restaurant itself. A year and a half ago, the demand for catering dried up, Jordan said. Then, about eight months ago, private events started a sharp decline. They were down to the restaurant itself, and business there had fallen off sharply, with a normal evening serving 160 to 170 dropping to 60 to 70.
"That's a problem," he said.
They tried to make adjustments to compensate -- such as reducing lunch service to one day a week, and introducing promotions -- but "since March, the feeling has been in my gut that this is what we're moving toward."
"I'm in complete understanding of what happened," he said. "We're a luxury item, and those tend to have problems in these times."taurant off our list for future visits during CES.
(Update - It appears the sluggish economy in Las Vegas over the past couple three years spelled doom for Rosemary's. They closed in July of 2011. Here's part of the story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Michael Jordan said the closure of the restaurant that opened for business in May 1999 was "very tough."
He said there wasn't one precipitating event, but a slow progression, tied to the lingering dismal state of Las Vegas' economy.
"A whole lot of little things added up to a big one," Jordan said. "We always kept hoping it was going to make that turn. It was a hard choice, thinking about our family and our kids," who, at 14 and 9, have grown up with Rosemary's. "We were moving toward a point of really jeopardizing ourselves."
Rosemary's -- which was named for his mother -- had had three revenue streams: a catering division, a wing for private parties and the restaurant itself. A year and a half ago, the demand for catering dried up, Jordan said. Then, about eight months ago, private events started a sharp decline. They were down to the restaurant itself, and business there had fallen off sharply, with a normal evening serving 160 to 170 dropping to 60 to 70.
"That's a problem," he said.
They tried to make adjustments to compensate -- such as reducing lunch service to one day a week, and introducing promotions -- but "since March, the feeling has been in my gut that this is what we're moving toward."
"I'm in complete understanding of what happened," he said. "We're a luxury item, and those tend to have problems in these times.")
