Group to spend almost $55M on new Las Vegas restaurants
The name is odd. The goal is straightforward: Go big.
HUKL Hospitality, in the portfolio of Vegas-based HUKL Investments, plans to spend almost $55 million on four restaurant projects across Boca Park and southwest Las Vegas over the next couple of years, beginning this summer.
The projects encompass an elevated bar and grill, a high-end Italian spot, a three-story food and drink complex (steakhouse meets food hall meets speakeasy), and a rotisserie chicken concept with ranks of roasting birds. Here’s a rundown on all the flavor.
La Madre Canyon Grill
HUKL acquired the old Sunnyside Up, a breakfast and lunch spot, in early 2023, later rebranding the restaurant as La Madre Canyon Grill and thoroughly revamping the menu, including adding dinner service. The goal was to create a top-notch (but still approachable) neighborhood restaurant that people would visit frequently, even two to three times a week.
The menu, in keeping with that goal, features beef and veal meatloaf with maple ketchup glaze, pan-roasted Faroe Islands salmon with corn salsa and charred lemon, Salisbury steak and sides whimsically presented in a TV dinner-style tray, shrimp étouffé and wet-aged Angus steak joining for surf and turf, and a giant chocolate chip cookie wedge piled with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and fruit.
Chef Lupe Avila, vice president of culinary operations for HUKL, is about to oversee an extensive $1.8 million remodel that involves new fixtures and finishes, annexing the suite next door to fashion a bar and lounge, and putting up a wall to form a private dining room from part of the main dining area.
La Madre is at 4195 S. Grand Canyon Drive, Suite 101. Visit lamadrecanyongrill.com.
Ciao Vino
Ciao Vino is taking over the Boca Park premises that once housed Bella Vita, which closed suddenly at the end of last year. Chef Joel Myers, most recently executive chef of Osteria Fiorella at Red Rock Resort, leads the kitchen at this high-end Italian restaurant.
The remodel of the 4,000-square-foot space into Ciao Vino is budgeted for $1.5 million. Among the highlights are black walnut paneling, wallpaper resembling Venetian plaster, a Marra Forni pizza oven, a chef’s table and a covered terrace.
“We want to do food that evokes classic American staples accentuated with other areas of Italy,” Avila said.
Craft cocktails and extensive wine selections anchor the beverage program. The opening is planned for this summer. Ciao Vino is at 740 S. Rampart Blvd. in Boca Park.
Skyline
The Clark County Planning Commission recently approved the construction of a three-story building to house the $50 million Skyline project, with Steelman Partners as architects.
The flagship of the project is a top-floor steakhouse, yet to be named, featuring panoramic valley views, wood-fire grills, in-house dry aging and butchering, top-drawer domestic and international beef, a small sushi area with an omakase option, theatrical desserts like a life-size chocolate tomahawk steak and a wine list with cruiserweights like Château Pétrus.
The second flour houses a catering kitchen and space for classes, weddings and other gatherings, up to 900 people. The space can be partitioned into three smaller rooms.
The first floor food hall encompasses a pasta-making area, a small butcher counter, and retail sales of steak and seafood, pasta, charcuterie, baked goods made in-house, chocolates and coffee. An outpost of DB Wine & Spirits, which HUKL owns, is also on the first floor.
The cellar beneath includes a small concert space, a cigar room, a speakeasy-type bar and a thorough ventilation system.
Skyline is breaking ground in the second quarter of 2025, with a minimum of 18 months to completion, Avila said. The Skyline site is in the Grand Flamingo Centre, near the Flamingo Road exit from the 215 Beltway in the southwest.
Chickn N Dipnz
This $1.2 million concept in its early stages showcases Korean-style rotisserie chicken. The other afternoon, Avila reviewed plans for a custom-designed rotisserie that can cook up to 45 birds at once, on spits arranged one above the other. Chickn N Dipnz will be in the southwest.
Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.