Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Here's my promised write-up on La Cave Food and Wine Hideaway at Wynn Las Vegas, a great new addition to the food and beverage lineup at the resort. I had a great time and I'm looking forward to going back on a future trip.

Continue after the jump for the full details.

Vegas Internet Mafia Payola Disclaimer: The bill was covered by Wynn Resorts. It had no impact on my review.

"The N9NE guy is opening a restaurant at Wynn? Really?"

That was my response, months ago, when we first discovered that Michael Morton was opening a wine bar in part of the space that made up the Terrace Pointe Cafe. Sounded like a bit of a strange match but as renderings started to leak, the picture came into focus... plus, let's be honest - Terrace Pointe is half-empty almost all of the time.

La Cave Wine and Food Hideaway opened at Wynn Las Vegas in early December and so far it seems to have garnered some positive press, even if it's not totally universal.

I, along with my guest, a one Mr. Monster, were able to sample their wares on the evening of December 8th, 2010. My review in one sentence? I found La Cave to be an excellent addition to the Wynncore F&B lineup - something unlike anything else on property.

La Cave is setup with three main rooms: you enter to find a bar and open kitchen in the first chamber, pass through to a dining room and another large bar and then finally find an adjunct 'garden room' type space with glass overlooking the pool. There's also an outdoor patio that includes full service if you should care to dine outside (or maybe you just want to smoke).

The food is all of the 'small plates' variety, tapas-esque. One of my favorite benefits of this style is that it enables the guest to try things. I'm often guilty of ordering multiple appetizers or even entrees at more traditional restaurants, just because I want to sample different dishes. Well, La Cave makes that easy.

Determined to mix things up, we made a few selections from different parts of the menu - it's broken up into categories like 'sea', 'farm', 'oven' (basically pizza), and 'garden'. After throwing in a few suggestions from the waiter, we ended up with several rotations of piping hot goodies.

Some of my favorites included the bacon wrapped dates (required for any tapas place but still quite good), the baked clams (seasoned with parmesan and zesty), the sea scallops (perfect) and the chorizo and sausage flatbread (I love chorizo and was glad to see it make an appearance). Not everything was a hit: I didn't really care for the lump crab lettuce cups. Not that they were terrible, just somewhat boring.

Of course, the other attraction is the wine. As you'd expect, there's a huge array of choices by the bottle but they also have a large selection of half-bottles and solid options by the glass. I think it's safe to say they can handle pretty much anything in this department. In addition to wine, there's also a ton of different beers. Chuck sampled some kind of strawberry beer that, while interesting, I would never order myself (and you'll have to wait for his review but I don't think he'd get it again either).

La Cave packs 'em in tight, New York City style - it was quite busy while we were there and there's not a lot of room to move around. That gives the small-ish dining rooms quite an energy, which, when combined with the garden room and patio, means that you can get a crowded, social experience or a layback, hang out vibe.

Service was generally good. One of our dishes took so long to come out that when it was discovered, mass apologies were triggered (the dish then magically appeared). Otherwise, we weren't left alone for too long and the food pretty much just kept coming. In talking with the folks at the next table (who were curious about all the photo taking of the various dishes), they also seemed to enjoy their meal.

La Cave is tasty, informal, reasonably priced, social and fun. It's a great addition to the Wynn Las Vegas lineup.