global. local. casual.

"I think that really, what’s gone on in Vegas has started to spread to other places in the sense that these restaurants are doing a very high level of food and service, but they’re a little more relaxed in style," said Michael Mina, a chef whose eight restaurants include Michael Mina Bellagio, Stripsteak at Mandalay Bay, and Nobhill and Seablue at MGM Grand. "Really high-end with very, very formal service, I’m seeing less of those."

"I think conceptually, there’s some interesting stuff going on," said Stephen Kalt, executive chef of Corsa Cucina at Wynn Las Vegas. Kalt cited Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali’s Pizzeria Mozza, which opened a few months ago in Los Angeles. Though it’s

ostensibly a pizzeria — hence the name — "in reality it’s a quite sophisticated restaurant."

"Feigning casual but actually being sophisticated is an enormous movement coming," Kalt said. "People don’t love really controlled dining anymore. The formality has been taken out — the stiff backs, seven people (serving) a table. I think people want to be more relaxed and casual, even though they’re eating fine cuisine and drinking good wine."

Running in tandem, Kalt said, is a trend toward the use of local ingredients whenever possible. It’s going to be more popular, he said, than even an emphasis on organic foods. "I think the environmental movement will have a big impact on the mentality of chefs."

Kalt predicted an end to "the whole concept of FedEx cuisine, which we’re all guilty of. I think that will come. I don’t think it will happen today or tomorrow." But he sees "much more awareness of what it takes to get you your product."

Wolfgang Puck has been a leader in the movement, Kalt noted. Puck’s recently announced Wolfgang’s Eating, Loving and Living Initiative, popularly known as WELL, has focused his far-reaching culinary empire on sustainable fishing and farming, humane treatment of farm animals, reducing the use of additives and using seasonal, organic produce.

"I think this year, especially, the biggest trend is using organic and natural products," said David Robins, corporate chef and director of operations for the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group. Through the WELL Initiative, he said, Puck is "being a forerunner in being healthy. Not necessarily the organic kick; this is about health and supporting the individuals that are investing in a business, such as farmers and individuals who are passionate about their product being put on a plate and cooked right. It’s really about fresh and healthy and great presentation."

Kalt conceded that in the desert, "it’s challenging" to use local produce. "Local for us is going to have to be the greenbelt in Arizona, and California." And that’s the area that has long been tapped by Alex Stratta, executive chef at his eponymous restaurant at Wynn Las Vegas, beginning when he worked at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"Trendwise, what I start to see is there’s a lot of communication between growers and farmers and chefs," Stratta said. "I just did an event in Hawaii that was all about Hawaiian farmers doing local produce. " Last weekend, he said, he went to New York for Chefs Gone Wild, which brought together chefs and growers. "I think that’s becoming a trend — heirloom vegetables, specialty meats, specialty seafoods and cheeses and olive oils," he said.

Stratta added that he’s narrowing his seasonal-food window.

"I’ve created a schedule where if something comes in season and it’s just ripe for two weeks, we’ll change the menu," he said. "We used to change it every six weeks; now we’re doing in-house printing, so my focus this year is, even if it’s available for two weeks, three weeks, change the menu. It keeps us on our toes."

"We’re getting more and more into locally grown as we can get," agreed Martin Heierling, executive chef at Sensi at Bellagio. "Obviously it’s not that much, but our little baby greens and vegetables, we get them from Pahrump and up north. The companies in Nevada that fill a niche market, we absolutely support them. They’re doing a phenomenal job. Whatever can be grown locally, that’s the way to go."

Rick Moonen, executive chef of restaurant rm at Mandalay Place, has been a leader in the sustainable-seafood movement, and said he’s intensifying his efforts.

"I will definitely open up my next restaurant 100 percent green," he said. "I was in New York City (before opening in Las Vegas) working on sustainability and environmental issues, and support in New York was OK. Out here, it’s 10 times that. Chefs are stepping up and saying, ‘Can you give me more information on that? I want to go more sustainable.’ It’s a unique little environment we live in here and I love being here. It’s very cool."

Heierling said he also sees a "recap of the whole molecular thing," referring to molecular cuisine, in which foods are given different — and sometimes rather odd — forms.

"Everyone’s looking at molecular cuisine, which is the thing that’s been doing the blowout," said Stephane Chevet, executive chef of Shibuya at MGM Grand. "Using the basic flavor element and working with the textures." He said some chefs are using products from Spanish chef Ferran Adria, considered one of the founders of the movement, to produce "things that people are not used to seeing. They’ve been out for two or three years but are just becoming more available."

"Everything that’s been going on in Spain and everything else where people are more daring and combining different flavors that aren’t typical — things of that nature — I think that’s still going to go on," Mina said.

"I think we’re seeing much more usage of the trend that started maybe four or five years ago with the Spanish influence with the chemistry sets," Stratta agreed. "Look at menus — not just in fine-dining places — and you’ll see remnants of that, not only for the techniques but for the thought process of letting go what we considered rules at the time, and focusing more on interesting combinations or techniques."

Other things chefs see on the horizon:

• "More left-of-center Asian cuisines, like Thai and Vietnamese and Malaysian," Kalt said.

• "Tapas haven’t cooled down here very much," Heierling said. "Julian (Serrano, executive chef of Picasso at Bellagio) is looking at something like that in the future. Spanish food really has made a big mark on the map now."

• "Price accessibility," Robins said. "Eat well without spending a fortune. Even if you’re at Spago, you can come in and sit at our bar or in our cafe and still have a great experience but not feel obligated to have a tasting menu."

• "Greek wines," Heierling said. "They’ve been making them for a long time, but they’re really coming up with some top-quality stuff."

• "I think Greek is getting hotter," Moonen agreed. "Really authentic taverna Greek. I can’t wait to roll out something along those lines."

• "With this day and age of pricing going up a little bit and the competition increasing, service — especially at the table level — is important," Robins said. "So we’re trying to create dishes that you have to do tableside. We feel like the customers feel they get more value."

• "With the advent of a lot of new equipment — for example, really high-speed blenders, immersion cookers, Cryovac cooking — there’s a lot more out for us to really work with textures," Stratta said. "It’s giving us a much bigger arsenal of equipment to use." He’s serving a halibut dish in which the skin is removed, dehydrated and fried "and it’s almost like a little potato chip."

• "How competitive the design has been," Mina said. "There’s a lot of really hot, good restaurant designers now, and so from a design side people are going to continue to push the envelope."

And that is a double-edged chef’s knife. Paul Bartolotta, executive chef of Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas, waxed philosophical.

"The media has given us this incredible platform," said Bartolotta, who calls himself a traditionalist. "The bad news is that it has made it so easy — and the Internet as well — to find out what is this chef in Spain doing and what is this guy in Tokyo doing? At the end of the day, there is a lot of sameness in cooking. The question is, how do you separate the milk from the cream? It’s if the ingredients are right."

As for Chevet, he joked that he’s keeping his forecasts close to the vest.

"I don’t want to say, because everybody else will start using them," he said. "You know how it is with chefs."