If you can take the heat, Las Vegas has just the kitchen
It’s as much of a given in reality TV as treachery and tears: Cooking contests need a Las Vegas angle.
If for some reason any of the seemingly endless array of culinary competitions can’t come up with a local challenger, almost without fail, at least one episode will take place here.
So what is it about our fair city?
“It’s the level of competitiveness, because it is high-end,” says Gordon Ramsay, whose “MasterChef” hits the Strip for the first time at 8 p.m. Wednesday on KVVU-TV, Channel 5.
“I mean, we could go to New York, London, Paris, but we’d have to travel to three different countries to eat some phenomenal food. Yet there’s every top chef in the world here. I’ve been waiting for the last five years to come here” with a restaurant.
Then, in a seven-month burst last year, he opened three: Steak at Paris Las Vegas, Pub & Grill at Caesars Palace and BurGR at Planet Hollywood Resort, the site of the “MasterChef” taping on this late February evening.
“For professionals, this is where they want to come work, be it line cooks or actual world-renowned chefs,” adds “MasterChef” judge Graham Elliot, who doesn’t yet have a Las Vegas restaurant but was using the trip to scout spaces. “For clientele, it’s coming here to enjoy that — taste it — be it something everyday and pedestrian to a once-in-a-lifetime meal. And Vegas, more than any other city I think in the country, offers that.”
Fellow judge Joe Bastianich, who partnered with Mario Batali in Carnevino at the Palazzo and Otto and B&B Ristorante at The Venetian, is more succinct regarding the city’s appeal: “Best food. Best strippers.”
Only the first part of that equation is on the menu this night. But there’s still a hint of sex in the air as BurGR’s comely, uniformed front-of-house staff lines up to welcome Ramsay with cheek kisses, the way you’d imagine Pan Am stewardesses greeted pilots back in those early, halcyon days of air travel.
“MasterChef” has come to the Strip so the bottom four of the show’s remaining 16 amateur cooks can be split into two teams, each seeking to create the ultimate gourmet burger. (The losing team would go head-to-head in a cook-off the next night at Caesars Palace’s Pure to determine who went home.)
Ramsay has used the Planet Hollywood Resort marquee to invite “the whole of Las Vegas” to eat the results, and the contestants have 60 minutes to prepare for their arrival. Not only must they perfect their high-end burgers, they’ll need to replicate them, exactly, to feed the customers who’ll be arriving in waves during the following 90 minutes.
The four contestants — revealing anything about them would ruin the surprise, not to mention violate a pretty terrifying nondisclosure agreement — seem to be handling themselves fairly well considering the pressure. They are, after all, amateurs. And if things don’t go well, they run the risk of embarrassing Ramsay in one of his own kitchens.
There are plenty of hazards involved in cooking competitions, the most obvious being sharp knives and even sharper barbs from the judges.
Those panelists — the acid-tongued Ramsay, as well as Bastianich, whom he describes as “very strong, very stern, straight to the point,” and Elliot, “the big cuddly bear that loves everybody” — take turns overseeing the contestants, criticizing what they see, offering advice, counting down the remaining minutes and generally getting all up in their grills, so to speak.
But the danger viewers surely never think about is head injuries.
Space is at a premium in most Strip restaurants, and BurGR is no exception. There are so many crew members — camera operators, sound technicians, still photographers, assistants and the like — swarming the small prep stations guerrilla-style, capturing every angle of the contestants as they scurry about like methed-out hamsters with knives, it’s a wonder more of them don’t run headfirst into a camera. Or each other.
There’s a blue-gloved medic standing at the ready just in case, but that just makes for one more body to fit into the minuscule amount of square footage not being covered by any of the cameras that are always on the move.
Just observing the action requires stealth — a spot beside the soda dispensers is safe, but the view is limited — as well as grace for anyone who wanders closer. From time to time, the few nonessential personnel have to all but dive out of the way to avoid turning up in the footage.
There’s a reason Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Top Chef Masters” both built “kitchen” sets somewhere other than their host hotels when they filmed in Las Vegas.
For the “MasterChef” control room, they’ve curtained off a portion of the casino floor that’s nearly as big as the restaurant. The remainder of the 120 Los Angeles-based crew members are tucked away there, along with banks of monitors relaying the eight camera feeds plus a live shot of the Strip.
It’s a nice, relaxing, out-of-the-way space. Getting there, though, is problematic. There doesn’t seem to be a way of exiting the restaurant without messing up someone’s shot.
As the minutes tick away, it becomes clear that the countdown is no made-for-TV illusion. The customers are already lined up. In mere moments, every camera in the joint is going to swing around to film their entrance, causing havoc for anyone caught in between.
It’s an exfiltration scenario fit for “Argo’s” Tony Mendez.
Rescuers eventually come. The shoot isn’t ruined. No reporters were harmed during the filming.
But it’s hard to avoid getting swept up in the adrenaline rush.
Earlier this night, Ramsay had offered another measure of the city’s culinary appeal: “You can never, ever get bored eating out in Vegas.”
Now, the same can be said for watching one of those meals come together.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at
clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.
