Many ways to celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes in Las Vegas

Mark LoRusso clearly remembers celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes when he was young.

“For people who grew up back East, in Italian-American families, Christmas Eve was always like no meat, lots of fish and pastas,” said LoRusso, executive chef of Costa di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas.

LoRusso’s is one of a number of Las Vegas restaurants, large and small, on and off the Strip, that are celebrating the tradition this year — some with prix-fixe menus, some a la carte, on only one night or for an extended period.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American tradition, but Giancarlo Bomparola, Milan-raised executive chef and managing partner of Siena Italian Deli &Authentic Trattoria at 9500 W. Sahara Ave., remembers a slimmer version of it from his childhood in Italy. He was born in Calabria, which has a rich seafood tradition and where the observance, called The Vigil, is common. It all stems from the Catholic practice of not consuming meat on days before feast days such as Christmas.

“In the first (wave of) immigration, around 1900, they preserved it and enlarged it,” Bomparola said of Italian immigrants to America. And while it’s called feast, it precedes the real feast.

“The feast was supposed to take over when Jesus was born,” Bomparola said. “It’s supposed to be a little bit later, like midnight. They used to stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning.”

“It’s about waiting until midnight, that day of recognition,” said Vic Casanova, an Italian-American who grew up in the Bronx and who’s now executive chef of Ambra Italian Kitchen + Bar at MGM Grand. “That day, until midnight, you just eat seafood. Especially us, my own family, we ate a lot of meat. So a day like that was significantly different than what we considered to be normal. In response to that, you want to go all out and make it as festive and fun as possible, and there goes the tradition. Something you look forward to.”

One thing the local menus have in common is baccala, or dried salt cod.

“For me, nostalgia is sort of my guiding light,” Casanova said. “Baccala is important, really important. If you look at Italian-American communities like the one I grew up in, we didn’t have too much money. Baccala you can hold and store; you activate it when it’s ready. But with the rewards comes the responsibility; just to make baccala is a three-day process.”

He soaks it in milk for two days to take most of the salt out, then slowly cooks it in water that’s changed a few times. It’s then cooked with potatoes and “a fair amount of garlic” and whipped in a stand mixer. The whipped baccala can be served in various ways; at Ambra, they’ll roll it into balls and quickly fry them.

“Which is very delicious,” Casanova said. “It’s Italian umami.”

At the other end of the spectrum is spaghetti with lobster; “for a kid from the Bronx, that was a really big deal,” Casanova said.

At Ambra, the baccala and spaghetti with lobster will be part of a prix fixe dinner available on Christmas Eve and priced at $125. Baccala fritters will be among the dishes on Costa di Mare’s seven-course prix fixe menu, $130, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Among the numerous dishes on Siena’s a la carte menu is fried baccala with fried rapini, $17.75.

At Locale Italian Kitchen, 7995 Blue Diamond Road, chef/owner Nicole Brisson made her own salt cod and reconstituted it.

“That’s like a five-, six-day process,” she said. “The baccala fritters came out so well.” They’re part of a seven-course feast — some of the dishes served family-style — being served during the two weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, for $75.

“This gives people some time to schedule it and really enjoy it when their family’s in town,” Brisson said.

At La Strega at 3555 S. Town Center Drive, chef/owner Gina Marinelli is doing twists on the traditional dishes.

“You have to still have stuff that people want to eat,” Marinelli said. “So we have a really cool fritto misto pizza.”

Her dinner on Christmas Eve is $150 through secretburger.com. Marinelli has planned an interactive event, with a crudo cart making the circuit, and a 15-pound tilefish sliced on the bar.

“There’s so many ways you can do it,” Marinelli said. “You can do a tasting, you can do a platter. I thought ‘fun.’ It’s Christmas Eve.”

The Feast of the Seven Fishes also will be served at Giada at The Cromwell as a prix fixe menu on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, for $120, and as a la carte dishes at Rao’s at Caesars Palace on Christmas Eve. Vetri at the Palms will serve a four-course menu of seven dishes for $130 on Dec. 23.

Ambra’s Casanova said he views his position as chef of an Italian restaurant as an ambassador of sorts.

“Part of it is food and part of it is culture,” he said. He’s spotlighting the culture with his celebration.

“People understand tomato, mozzarella; they understand meatballs,” he said. “Baccala is a little more ethnic, it’s a little more honest, and it’s a surprise for many people. People don’t understand how things like that could exist and they haven’t tasted it.”

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.