During my recent trip to Las Vegas for meetings, we went out to dinner one evening at the Vegas outpost for one of the more popular Italian places from New York - Carmine's. There's a lot of New York influence in regard to restaurants in Las Vegas and Carmine's is just another of a number of New York-based restaurants that have popped up in Las Vegas over the years.
The original Carmine's started in New York 30 years ago by a visionary entrepreneur by the name of Artie Cutler. Cutler was born in Brooklyn, NY, but grew up Hyde Park, NY north of New York City. His grandfather ran what New Yorkers called an "appetizing" stand that featured gravlax, white fish, herring and sardines that people would buy to nosh on or for entertaining at home. After the Cutler family moved to Hyde Park, Artie's father ran a grocery store and a restaurant that the young Artie helped out in. So you could say that working in restaurants was in Cutler's blood.
Artie Cutler went to Columbia University in New York City and graduated with a degree in sociology in 1965. That was the same year that he married his junior high school sweetheart, Alice. The two soon had two young girls to raise. Cutler worked as a social worker out of college and tried his hand a number of business ventures. He ended up working for Harold "Heshy" Berliner at an appetizing shop not far from his grandfather's former stand on Brighton Beach.
While working for Heshy Berliner, Cutler heard that a fish shop on the Upper West Side of New York was up for sale. Murray's Sturgeon Shop had been open since the end of World War II and was owned by two brothers who fled Poland with their parents in the 1930's to escape growing anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. The two brothers - Murray and Sam Bernstein - were looking to retire and sell the place. With Berliner's blessing and guidance - and a small loan from Berliner and Alice Cutler's mother - Artie Cutler bought Murray's in 1974.
Located between 90th and 91st on Broadway, Murray's wasn't all that big, but it held a loyal clientele of people who came in for cold smoked salmon, lox, gravlax, caviar, and chunks of sturgeon that fishmongers cut on site. Cutler had moved his family to the Upper West Side and he noted that there weren't a lot of restaurants that were willing to open in the area above 86th and Broadway. It was one of the more densely populated areas in the nation - if not the world - and there was a dearth of good restaurants in the area.
Cutler devised a business plan to take over a building at 91st and Broadway and to put in an Italian restaurant that served old world Italian dishes, family style. He wanted the place to be fancy, but comfortable enough to get neighborhood families to come in for celebration dinners. And he didn't care if food critics didn't think his food was haute cuisine as he eschewed the growing trends of Italian restaurants that focused on using extra virgin olive oils, aged vinegars and buffalo cheese in their dishes.
He took on a couple of silent partners in his new venture and sold Murray's Sturgeon Shop in 1990 when he was getting ready to open his new restaurant. Since he wasn't Italian and he didn't want to call an Italian restaurant "Artie's", Cutler had to come up with an Italian sounding name for the restaurant. It turned out that Artie Cutler loved to bet on harness racing and one of his favorite harness drivers at area tracks was Carmine Abbatiello, a well-known driver who won over 7,000 races in his career. Carmine's became the perfect name for his new Italian restaurant.
Carmine's became well-known for their large portions of Italian food such as spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parm, veal dishes, and steaks. It quickly became the go-to spot on the Upper West Side and other restaurants took notice. Soon, other restaurants opened along Broadway, Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues.
With the success of Carmine's on the Upper West Side, Cutler and his partners looked to branch out into other ventures. A Chinese friend of his in the restaurant business, Tsu Yue Wang, lamented that Chinese restaurants didn't go over well outside of New York's Chinatown. Always looking for a challange, Cutler partnered with Wang to open the first Ollie's Noodle Shop & Grille - a Chinese-American place that focused on noodle and meat dishes. It became an immediate hit. He named it Ollie's because members of Tsu's family couldn't pronounce his first name correctly - they always pronounced his name as "Ollie".
In 1993, Carmine's opened a second location in Times Square in New York City. This was a big gamble for Cutler as this was before commercial development came in and cleaned up the area in and around Times Square. (Another restaurant that he opened there - an upscale sports bar/restaurant - went belly-up in 1995.) Today, Carmine's in Times Square is one of the highest grossing restaurants in the nation.
It was also in 1993 that Artie Cutler incorporated his growing restaurant empire into the Alicart Restaurant Group with Cutler as the CEO. Other concepts followed including Virgil's Real Barbecue that opened in Times Square in 1995. (Cutler named the restaurant after the starter at his golf club figuring that he'd get some good tee times if he did.) And he started Gabriela's, an authentic Mexican restaurant located on the Upper West Side, with his housekeeper/home cook Gabriela Hernandez as a partner. It was said that Artie Cutler was so impressed with Hernandez's cooking that he didn't recall any Mexican food place like it in the neighborhood.
Tragically, Artie Cutler died of a heart attack in 1997 at the age of 53. Alice Cutler took over as the CEO for the Alicart Restaurant Group and carried on Artie's legacy. She opened a delicatessen simply called Artie's in 1999 to pay homage to her late husband. Like Carmine's, Ollie's and Gabriela's, it, too, became a success.
By 2005, Alice Cutler wanted to slow down. She wasn't expanding restaurants beyond the 4 Ollie's, 3 Carmine's, and the single Artie's and Gabriela's location. In fact, when the lease was up on Gabriela's later that year, she was just going to let it go. A nephew who worked in the Alicart Restaurant Group came in to buy Gabriela's and rescue the place. But it was clear that Alice Cutler needed more help and guidance to move forward if any more expansion were to occur.
In 2008, she hired Jeffrey Bank to take over as CEO of the Alicart Restaurant Group. Bank's first responsibility was to trim the fat, so to speak. He sold off the assets of Ollie's and Artie's, then decided against expansion of more Carmine's and Virgil's locations in New York City. New York City had become a difficult place for restaurants to do business with increased rules and regulations, so Bank focused his efforts on expanding Carmine's and Virgil's outside of the city.
Bank opened Carmine's in Atlantic City, Washington DC and at the Atlantis resort/casino in the Bahamas. The Las Vegas location opened in July of 2013 taking over for the former Planet Hollywood location in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. He also expanded Virgil's Real Barbecue locations to Las Vegas and Atlantis, as well.
I hadn't been to the Forum Shops for quite sometime and I have to say that a lot had changed since my last time there a few years ago. I got a little discombobulated walking through the place as there were escalators that wrapped around having to go up, then down to continue on the walkway. I think I got turned around a couple times. (Getting out of the place that evening was even more of an adventure.) But I was able to find Carmine's on Level One of the Forum Shops. (see map)
The front of was a faux facade that looked like it was in an old world Italian neighborhood. Some in our group had begun to congregate in front of Carmine's as they wouldn't seat our large group until we had all assembled. We had a late reservation - 8:30. I wasn't too happy with that as I had a 4:30 wake-up call the next morning for my flight back home.
The inside of Carmine's featured a lot of dark walnut paneling, L.E.D. chandeliers hanging from the ceiling over a stately main floor dining area. A large bar area with a tall bar back was the centerpiece of the restaurant. Pictures of Italian celebrities and notable buildings were hanging on the wall opposite the bar. The place is huge - with private dining areas, Carmine's in Las Vegas can seat 700 people.
We were taken upstairs to a large gathering area where they had a long table set up for our large group. I don't care much for dining like this as heads are turning in different directions trying to keep up with conversations. I ended up seated near the end of the table with one of our reps from New York and a group of guys from our new rep company out of Texas. A bottle of Carmine's private label red wine appeared, but we were also allowed to order from the bar. I got a Sculpin IPA from the Ballast Point brewery out of San Diego to start out.
Since we were in a large group, we had a fixed menu. But many of the items on the fixed menu were the staples of the main menu at Carmine's. Everything is served family style at Carmine's and portions are huge. Pasta entrees, chicken and veal dishes, seafood and Italian-style beef servings are the main food focus at Carmine's. They also have a number of appetizers including stuffed artichoke, fried zucchini, and antipasto favorites.
But we started out with Carmine's delicious fried calamari and a Caesar's salad. My colleague from New York City that I was seated with has eaten at the original Carmine's on the Upper West Side and he said that he thought their calamari was some of the best in the city. I had to agree with him. The calamari we had this particular evening was cooked perfectly and not rubbery in texture like you can get with some calamari. And the breading on the calamari wasn't overpowering, either. With the sweet and tangy marinara sauce on the side, this was a promising start to the meal.
From there, the main entrees started to come out. And, as I said, the portions are huge and those of us at our end of the table started to just cut portions off the serving dish and put it on to our plate. I wanted to try a little bit of everything and the first thing I tried was the chicken parmigiana. It had a light breading over the pounded chicken breasts and it had a thick coating of mozzarella cheese over the top. The chicken parm was swimming in Carmine's very good marinara sauce. It wasn't the best chicken parm I've had, but it was good.
Served alongside the chicken parm were spaghetti and meatballs. I didn't have any of the pasta, but I cut one of the huge meatballs in half to put on my plate with the chicken parmigiana. The meat ball was outstanding in taste. It held together very well and I'm guessing was a combination of beef and pork as it tasted similar to the meat balls I make at home.
The food kept coming out to the table. There was a large platter of broiled salmon that was served. I didn't try any as I got sick on salmon on a trip to France a few years ago and I can't really stand the taste of cooked salmon. Now, raw or smoked salmon - such as with sushi - I can handle. But the salmon that was served at Carmine's seemed to be popular at our end of the table.
I did try some of the shrimp linguine that was served. It featured plump sautéed shrimp with fresh basil and linguine noodles in an olive oil/white wine sauce. Yeah, it was pretty good, but I liked the chicken parm and the meatballs probably the best out of what I tried.
We had a lot of food on the table. The lady who coordinated dinner that evening came down and whispered in my ear, "We ordered too much food." I assured her that it was better to have too much than too little, especially in a large group.
By the time the dessert was brought out - cheesecake and cannoli - I had eaten more than enough for the night. Besides, it was after 10 p.m. and I needed to get back to the hotel and get to bed so I could get at least some sleep before the early morning wake-up call. I hung around for a bit having a couple bites of a piece of cheesecake, but I excused myself and thanked the powers-that-be for dinner that night. A couple other guys took my cue to get up to go, as well. It wasn't long before we were all saying our goodbyes and leaving there.
I'm a little leery of places that can take large parties as the food and service usually suffers. But I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the food and service at Carmine's. I particularly enjoyed the chicken parm and the meatballs, but the shrimp linguine was pretty good, as well. The fried calamari was also excellent and I could have easily just gorged myself on that all evening. My colleague from New York said that he thought the Carmine's in Las Vegas was as good as the one back in New York City. The food is not the best Italian you can find, but it's solid enough to pretty much satiate any cravings you may have for your favorite Italian dish. But don't forget to bring your appetite!
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