Louis’s Las Vegas

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Louis’s Las Vegas has made a pimento-cheese believer out of me, and trust me, that’s a real feat.

I lived in the South for 21 years. (And, not to digress, but if you don’t think parts of Florida are the South, you’ve never met the mudding, wild-hog hunting, swamp-buggy-driving and especially longneck-drinking Floridians I have.) Never in those two decades-plus did I acquire a taste for pimento cheese, despite the fact that it seemed everyone around me was practically living on the stuff.

And so it was that I wasn’t real impressed when our waiter at Louis’s pointed out the little pot of pimento cheese — “Pate of the South,” in Louis’s parlance — served with a basket of bread and lavash (and butter, too). But I gave it a shot, and lo and behold: Maybe it was the fact that it was enriched with sour cream, but this was not only edible pimento cheese but truly delicious pimento cheese– perhaps, considering the way I kept digging in, nearly addictive pimento cheese.

Hmmm. If Louis’s can do this with pimento cheese, I figured, the she-crab soup ($10) ought to be a given, since it’s a specialty of the Carolina Lowcountry cuisine for which James Beard award-winning chef Louis Osteen is known. Sure enough, it exemplified the tradition, with lots and lots (and lots — way more than I’d expected) of crab suspended in a bowl of silkiness with more than a shot of sherry.

Also exemplary was the grouper entree ($26) that was a special that evening. Grouper has its detractors because it’s an extremely mild-tasting fish, but that very neutral nature makes it a foil for more assertive flavors, and this was a case in point. The dish was billed as “potato-crusted,” which in practice usually means the kitchen threw a spoonful of mashed potatoes on top, but this time theory won out, with thin potato slices wrapped around the grouper like fish scales, their edges crisped. It was served atop a mound of lightly creamed wild mushrooms and asparagus — the assertive flavors with which the fish didn’t compete. A negative: Our waiter didn’t list the prices when he told us the specials. A positive: As it should be, the price was right in line with those of most of Louis’s entrees.

Unlike pimento cheese, grits are something I tend to pine for, and I wasn’t disappointed with the timbale of stone-ground grits ($13) with shrimp and shrimp gravy. Lots of texture with this one, and just like in the grouper dish, the blank canvas of the grits got a metaphorical burst of color from the shrimp.

A lamb shank ($31) seemed a little less Lowcountry but was no weak link — slowly braised until the meat was tender, the earthy flavors deeply developed — and the parsnip cake and crisp Brussels sprouts on the side were prime examples of the unexpected in which Louis’s seems to revel.

And, finally, beignets ($9) with ice cream, which we didn’t think we’d manage to finish but which were just too good to resist.

“Upscale dining at its finest, y’all,” Louis’s Web site promises, and it definitely delivers.

Yes, the South has risen again — at Town Square in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-4676 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.