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Eater
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
The Cult of Las Vegas's Oyster Bar
What's the toughest table to get in Las Vegas? Maybe it's Mother Wolf, that juggernaut of modern Roman cuisine inside the Fontainebleau, or Stubborn Seed at Resorts World, the latest opening from a Top Chef winner who seems to actually be making good on his potential. One would be forgiven for guessing an old standby like Joël Robuchon, or a newcomer like Gjelina at the Venetian, a Los Angeles export grilling yu choy and other sundry dishes that embody California cuisine. But you would be way, way off. The toughest seat is actually the 24-hour Palace Station Oyster Bar, where devotees are queued up at all hours of the day and night to taste its Cajun- and Creole-style seafood dishes. The 18-seat Oyster Bar, which turns 30 years old this fall, has a fervent cult following and there are no reservations. There's also nothing exclusive about access, nor is there a dress code: It's literally in the middle of the casino floor, where the slots bisect the table games. And although it's certainly not cheap (it's serving seafood, after all), it's not cost-prohibitive, meaning its customers are a mix of tourists and locals. Las Vegas is a city rife with contradictions, so it's no surprise that its most exclusive restaurant is simultaneously one of its most inclusive. It also sits within one of Vegas's most populist casinos, on an expanse of land just west of I-15 on Sahara Avenue, awkwardly positioned between the Strip and Downtown. The location, simultaneously inconvenient and yet a short drive from nearly everything, embodies the term 'neither here nor there.' It's a spot that's so seemingly unremarkable, in fact, that its decades of success don't make much sense to the casual observer. ('People thought he was crazy,' says Lorenzo Fertitta, son of Station Casinos founder Frank Fertitta Jr., referring to the location of his father's venture.) Hopefully, a picture is beginning to come together. You're in Vegas, hungry in the infernal heat, dodging F1 construction and checking out whatever ads or emojis happen to be emblazoned on the Sphere that day. Walking into Palace Station, there's the familiar waft of cigarette smoke. Dragon Link and other creature-themed slot machines call out ( 'Buffaloooooo!' ), but there's a hint of something else floating in the air — tomatoes, cream and... is that sherry? The aromas intensify as you go deeper into the belly of the building. The first thing you'll notice is the marquee: 'Oyster Bar 24/7,' with a little anchor on the side. The faux chalkboard lettering on a half-octagon that wraps around above the bar has a distinctly '90s Bar Louie feel, but don't let that dissuade you. Past the stanchions cordoning off Oyster Bar from the rest of the casino is a long line of people on one side, like theater patrons waiting for the latest hot off-Broadway show. Behind the bar, there is an entrancing performance: Cooks and servers rhythmically rotate behind billowing clouds of steam, pouring drinks and arranging oysters in circles atop crushed ice. Oyster Bar's most popular dish is not, in fact, the fat Gulf oysters as big as computer mice, but rather the pan roast. And while plenty of people get oysters or a shrimp cocktail on the side, or maybe an order of the herbaceous gumbo or heady etouffee, most people come for the pan roast. Oyster Bar goes through 33,000 gallons of it annually. The counterintuitively named dish, which may originate with Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York, conjures an image of a chicken in a pan, roasting in the oven. Put this out of your head. Instead, imagine a bisque — a thick, creamy, shellfish-based seafood soup, a rustic base for huge floating hunks of seafood. Anchored by tomatoes and cream, girded with an aromatic sofrito that tastes of the holy trinity of Cajun cooking, the pan roast has an undertone of garlic and a nutty fruitiness, akin to brandy or fortified wine. It should be eaten with a spoon, but some larger chunks of shrimp, crab, and lobster may need to be forked out. Served with white rice and a basic chunk of bread, the pan roast can also be eaten with a side of noodles. Rice is the correct choice, however, as the surface tension allows the base of the roast to envelop the rice, creating a creamy crustacean porridge. Let's be clear — this is not revelatory fine dining. I remember, after first having the pan roast, feeling even slightly underwhelmed. At the end of the day, it's 'a jazzed-up bisque,' in the words of specialty cook Bob Higdon, who's worked at Oyster Bar for the last 25 years and has a seemingly endless repertoire of droll quips and one-liners he delivers to patrons. But a day later, I felt an unfamiliar tug. The taste had almost instantly grown on me, like I'd been eating it for years. And now, sitting here writing this piece, the slow burn has grown into a bonfire: I want to go back. I can't wait to go back. 'I tell people all the time,' Higdon says. 'I said, 'You're not going to hate me now, you're going to hate me next week when you're sitting at home and get that flavor in the back of your mouth.'' And he's right. That's exactly what happened. Beyond the pan roast, there are a few things you need to know when dining at Oyster Bar. First, you'll be asked to select a spice level, 10 being the highest. Most people who like spicy food can probably swing a 7 or 8 without feeling like they've made a grave mistake. Otherwise, stick to a 4. Spice can always be added in the form of the off-menu lava sauce — a tangy, chunky mixture of hot peppers that you can feel burning your mouth before the spoon even reaches your lips. You have to ask for it specifically, and it's only for showoffs and true masochists. Second, the entrees are a huge amount of food, especially with the rice. Finishing a pan roast solo is a serious undertaking. The leftovers are worth keeping if your hotel room has a microwave and/or fridge. Third, don't bring the kids. Oyster Bar is literally a bar, and they can't seat anyone under 21. Also, you won't get the exact recipe, so don't ask. ('You don't ask the Colonel for 11 spices,' says Higdon.) And finally, be ready to wait. The story of the wait, and of Oyster Bar, starts in 1976 with Fertitta Jr., who discovered a demographic that had not fully been tapped into: a casino that catered to Las Vegas locals, not tourists. (Indeed, he opened as simply The Casino.) Oyster Bar came along in October 1995. While there may have been a Cajun joint or two around town at the time, this particular style of New Orleans cooking hadn't quite taken hold in Vegas. Emeril Lagasse, he of the onomatopoetic catchphrase, didn't open New Orleans Fish House at MGM Grand until the following month. Today, there are plenty of Cajun options in Vegas, mostly off-Strip, mostly of the crawfish or seafood-boil variety. In the summer of 2000, something had changed. 'That's when I noticed the lines.' Oyster Bar was opened, in part, as an apparent nod to Fertitta Jr.'s origins in southeastern Texas, near the Louisiana border. 'That kind of food is very prominent around there,' says Dave Horn, general manager of Durango casino and former GM of Palace Station. 'I think it's a real easy tie-in that they said, 'Okay, you know what? We should bring this here.'' Interest in the restaurant ramped up slowly. 'It was a cult following at first,' says Horn, who was a valet attendant for the casino at the time. He posits that Oyster Bar's rise in popularity coincided with the rise of online culture in the mid-1990s. 'That's when you have the internet start to come alive,' Horn recalls. '[There's] that five-year period where people can start to talk about things on the internet or Palace Station can put something out there.' By the time Horn came back for his second stint at Palace Station in the summer of 2000, something had changed. 'That's when I noticed the lines,' he says. The line is an amalgamation of different cities, states, and countries, where folks of every shape and size stand and wait for one of those 18 coveted seats at the counter. The line can take as long as five hours to get through ('Super Bowl weekend a couple years ago,' says Higdon). The line is, in some ways, the defining characteristic of the Oyster Bar experience. A blessing and a curse. Okay, it's mostly a curse. Lines are unpleasant. But decadeslong Oyster Bar customers seem to think it's worth the wait — or, at the very least, they've convinced themselves of that truth. Gina Bruno, a flight attendant visiting from the Washington, D.C., area, has been coming here for the past 20 years. 'It's like a camaraderie,' she says. 'You stand in line, you talk about what you're gonna eat, and it's just a whole experience.' But she is also frank about the line, which she and her dining companions had been standing in for about two hours. 'It sucks,' she says, laughing. 'It's worth the wait,' says Barry Bryant, who works in entertainment in Atlanta. Bryant, who also has been coming to Oyster Bar for two decades, says he makes the trip every time he comes to Las Vegas. 'It's not too fancy, it's casual and it's different — it hits different.' Anitra Baker has been a fan for even longer — 25 years. She typically visits from California every year on her birthday. 'You can't get the same taste anywhere else,' she says. 'I can't find it anywhere else. I literally come all the way from San Francisco to get it.' 'I can't find it anywhere else. I literally come all the way from San Francisco to get it.' I've been to some restaurants where there's a vague feeling that the wait was somewhat manufactured, or intentional. As in, staff could have done more food prep or planning ahead of time if they'd wanted to, in order to cut down on wait times. That's not the case here. Oyster Bar cooks move as quickly as possible, turning all the seats at a rate that approaches once per hour, 24 hours a day. With only 18 people being served at a time, each pan roast, gumbo, or bouillabaisse taking around 8 to 10 minutes to cook, and just six jacketed steam kettles to prepare them, the cooks are limited in how quickly they can serve those customers. The kettles resemble small woks and sit in a row behind the counter in a setup that looks literally steampunk — tubes and pipes wriggling out of the counter to spew cold water or feed jets of hot steam into the containers. There are numerous advantages to cooking with these kettles: being able to boil cold water in about 30 seconds, not having to constantly wash pots and pans, and keeping the kitchen cooler because there's no open flame. But the biggest advantage is the evenness and consistency of the temperature. 'You can let your stuff reduce without it burning the sauces,' Higdon explains. 'The whole surface of our kettle is the same temperature. It doesn't have a hot spot.' No hot spots mean uniform cooking, which means you don't get some pieces of seafood that are perfectly cooked and some that are rubbery and overdone. And no broken sauces, either. 'If you've ever had a scorched cream sauce, you know that's not good stuff,' he says. The cooking method also provides a bit of theatrics, which has been another part of Oyster Bar's lasting appeal. Ordering, preparing, plating, and consuming all happen within a couple feet of each other. 'There's no other setting you get like that besides hibachi, [where] you get to interact with your cook and they cook right in front of you,' says Paul Sanchez, the chef that currently oversees Oyster Bar. Sanchez notes that it takes a special kind of cook to make it work. 'I fell in love with it right away,' he says. 'The style of cooking, being able to talk to people from all across the world, interacting with guests. But a lot of cooks, they don't like that. You know, that's why they're back of the house.' Nothing has been able to dethrone the original Oyster Bar. Las Vegas is a place heavy on mimicry. When something in the city works, particularly in the food arena, imitators pop up left and right. And while that's certainly happened with Oyster Bar — even in the form of places opened down the street by cooks who quite literally used to work at Oyster Bar — nothing has been able to dethrone the original. (Station Casinos also has four other Oyster Bars at its different properties. I've heard they don't match the charm of the original.) Sanchez explains it this way: 'My theory is, in a chef's mind, you want to make things better, always want to take it to the next level. Well, here, it's not about taking it to the next level. It's about keeping the consistency... If somebody comes here from Hawai'i once a year, and this is the place to go, they come and order a pan roast. Next time they come, they want that exact same flavor profile.' In other words, nostalgia and sense memory are powerful aspects of food. And when people fall in love, they don't want a better, flashier version. They want what they had. 'If you try to recreate [the pan roast] and put it somewhere else, it won't work,' says chef David Chang, who has been beating the Oyster Bar drum for years. Chang estimates he's eaten there between 30 and 40 times. Trying to replicate the exact chemistry of a place like that, he says, is a futile exercise. 'Sometimes a restaurant like that works because it's the perfect balance of ingredients, of everything. From the ambience to the cigarettes in the air, everything works together.' 'I don't describe it,' Chang says. 'I just say, 'Trust the process and you'll be so happy.'' Even if that means waiting for an hour or two. Or three. Most of the day, there's no getting around the wait. There is one workaround — well, it's not exactly a workaround, but a path to a shorter wait. If you want a pan roast first thing in the morning, and let's face it, you might not after a night of Jägerbombs, try rolling in around 7 or 8 a.m. The line will likely be much shorter. But aside from that, the best bet is to come as a crew and rotate people in and out of the line. Someone waits while the other people go gamble, go to the sportsbook, or mall-walk the casino floor. Horn even recalls seeing people put in food orders while waiting in line, just to tide them over: 'They'd literally put in a pizza and a drink order... In my head I'm thinking, '[These are] people eating and drinking in the line to wait for a food and drink product .'' But the best thing to do is to embrace it. Give in to it. Come hungry and ready to wait, safe in the knowledge that the entire sensory experience of the Oyster Bar — the visuals of the cooking, the smells of the steaming seafood, the electronic din of spinning slot machines, the sardonic one-liners coming out of Chef Bob's mouth — all combine together in a way that is sui generis in the restaurant world. Like the symphony inside the pan roast itself, there's nothing quite like it. Sign up for our newsletter.
Time Out
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
What it's like to dine at Stubborn Seed from Michelin-starred chef Jeremy Ford
After winning season 13 of Top Chef, Jeremy Ford opened his farm-to-table restaurant Stubborn Seed in Miami Beach. Using produce from his own farm he created a rotating tasting menu based on seasonal ingredients that caught the attention of diners and food critics. In 2022, Stubborn Seed was awarded its first Michelin star. Now, Ford is in Las Vegas offering a seasonal tasting menu at his Stubborn Seed sequel inside Resorts World. We dined there. Here's what to expect. The restaurant is twice the size of the Miami Beach location with seating for 130. Ford partnered with Celano Design Studio on the space, which includes a three-tiered circular chandelier hanging over the bar. You'll also spot a crashing blue wave hand-painted on a curved canvas above the exhibition kitchen, where a team of chefs meticulously prepare Ford's modern American fare. Ford focuses on providing diners a vegetable-forward meal that mixes in proteins like salmon, Japanese yellowtail or Wagyu beef. He's sourcing ingredients regionally and locally, including using Vegas-grown Desert Moon mushrooms. The dishes are all artfully plated. Edible flowers top certain dishes, as do airy foams, while swipes of sauces ring the plate on others. Stubborn Seed opened in February with an eight-course winter tasting menu ($135 per person) that included sake and citrus cured Japanese yellowtail, uni panna cotta, and winter truffle ricotta gnudi with maitake mushrooms, buttery greens and crunchy pine nuts. The meal can be upgraded to the 'elevated experience' ($175) with add-ons such as a kaluga caviar macaron and Hudson Valley foie gras and black truffle tart. A wine pairing can be added for $70. A tight à la carte menu is available at the bar. Here guests can order some of those same tasting menu dishes individually or opt for items like Iberico ham fritters ($22), a Wagyu smash burger ($28) or barramundi with butter poached baby leaks ($33). Equally impressive is Stubborn Seed's beverage program. The restaurant's signature cocktail is called the Kill Dill. It's a fresh green cocktail that combines gin and the absinthe-like Dolin Génépy with cucumber, dill syrup and egg white. Other drinks are riffs on originals with Stubborn Seed's version of the old fashioned using black tea-infused whiskey and a negroni featuring ancho chile liqueur.
Forbes
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Jeremy Ford's Stubborn Seed Brings Its Playful Tasting Menus To Las Vegas
Stubborn Seed's "elevated experience" includes a caviar macaron. Stubborn Seed, Jeremy Ford and Grove Bay Hospitality's Michelin-star Miami destination, is ready to make a splash in Las Vegas. Tucked on the north end of Resorts World Las Vegas, steps from Brezza, Aqua and Carversteak, the new Stubborn Seed debuted in February. This is a modern American restaurant with playful seasonal tasting menus that start at $135, a good value for those who want a fine-dining experience that isn't overly fussy on the Strip. Upgrade to Stubborn Seed's $175 'elevated experience,' still significantly less expensive than the more elite tasting-menu restaurants in Las Vegas, to get sumptuous add-ons like a kaluga caviar macaron and a Hudson Valley foie gras and black truffle tart. Ford, who won season 13 of Top Chef, expertly plays with textures and temperatures as he serves uni panna cotta with yuzu gelee and orange kombu granita. It's a terrific combination of luxurious and refreshing, a proper introduction to the way Ford thinks and cooks. And as Ford has said before, Stubborn Seed wants to showcase 'every ingredient at its peak,' so the restaurant's winter menu in Las Vegas features winter truffle ricotta gnudi with maitakes and buttery greens. Stubborn Seed also makes the most of mushrooms as it amps up umami in standout dishes like pan-roasted barramundi with baby leeks, fennel, shiitake sofrito and a resplendent galangal green curry. Layering umami on top of umami on top of more umami and plenty of distinct savory notes is how Ford likes to roll: Westholme wagyu strip loin is prepared with brown butter soubise, Vegas-grown Desert Moon mushrooms, Marcona-almond-fermented soybean, crispy miso cabbage and chicken jus. There's a lot going on here, and it all works nicely together. Westholme wagyu from Australia gets the Stubborn Seed treatment. The Las Vegas Stubborn Seed, with its industrial-chic Miami roots, is a restaurant that's polished but not too polished, an upscale spot that has purposefully chosen to be loose instead of buttoned-up. It's part of an eclectic dining upgrade at Resorts World, where construction is well underway on Copper Sun, a high-end hot pot restaurant from the prolific Happy Lamb restaurant group. We hear that Resorts World will soon announce a noodle-focused pop-up from an East Coast chef as it keeps things moving with its diverse restaurant collection. Resorts World is where you'll find dining destinations like the plant-based Crossroads (where chef Tal Ronnen will host a collaboration with Rocco DiSpirito and Michael Voltaggio on April 17) and Genting Palace (which has raised the stakes for all-you-can-eat Vegas experiences with its Wednesday-through-Sunday seafood buffet, where guests can load up on crab and lobster and also enjoy Beijing duck). And for those who want to experience Stubborn Seed without ordering a tasting menu, there's also a tight à la carte menu with dishes like the barramundi with green curry, a double smash burger, whole roasted cauliflower and a smoked beef rib for two. Cacio e pepe cheesy puffs and a foie gras and truffle tart could be an over-the-top bar snack or the start of a transporting dinner. The whole point of Las Vegas, of course, is choosing your own adventure.
Miami Herald
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Chef from Michelin-starred Miami Beach restaurant opens a new spot in the Florida Keys
This winter has been a busy season for Chef Jeremy Ford, the force behind the Michelin-starred restaurant Stubborn Seed in Miami Beach. He has made it through the grueling first year at the organic Ford's Farm, his 5.5 acre stretch of land in Homestead. In February, he and his team opened a new Stubborn Seed at Resorts World Las Vegas in February. And now, he has opened a brand-new restaurant, Salt + Ash, at Hawks Cay Resort in the Florida Keys. While the opening of a restaurant from a Michelin-recognized brand has become business as usual in the exploding culinary landscape of Miami, it's a noteworthy event in the Florida Keys. Ford, who also opened The Butcher's Club in Palm Beach Gardens in 2022, can't quite believe everything that has happened in the past few months. 'It's been a whirlwind, I'll tell you that,' he says. 'I've learned a lot, and I'm still learning, still growing. But you know, I think that we're producing something very different for the Monroe County.' The addition of Salt + Ash is part of a series of upgrades at the family-friendly resort, which is updating its 177 guest rooms and spa and will also be turning its poolside Pilar Bar into an outdoor restaurant serving Asian fusion and cocktails inspired by Ernest Hemingway. The 60-acre resort, which includes five swimming pools and a saltwater lagoon, is also renovating its marina to include 85 boat slips, a project that is expected to be finished by fall 2025. Reggie Cooper, managing director at Hawks Cay, said having a Ford restaurant on the property was a huge benefit to the resort, which is located on Duck Key, almost (but not quite) midway between Key Largo and Key West. 'Chef Ford brings an authentic taste of Florida's culinary spirit to the resort,' he said. 'His bold take on the Keys' seasonal flavors add a fresh, exciting dimension to our dining offerings with dishes that uniquely capture the essence of the Florida Keys.' 'What we get here is special' Located in what used to be an extremely large gift shop, Salt + Ash offers diners an airy, upscale beach house atmosphere. The menu highlights elevated coastal cuisine, with seafood playing the starring role in dishes like the crispy local snapper with tomato and ginger emulsion, pickles, nuac cham and Thai basil or olive oil poached swordfish with white bean puree, Sicilian olives, charred peppers and fennel pollen. 'What we do here that's different is that we have fishermen coming around, right to the dock at Duck Key, so we're producing some of the freshest fish you'll ever have,' Ford says. 'It's a game changer, right? Because a lot of these guys, they won't drive up to Miami, they won't drive up to West Palm. So what we get here is special. My chef de cuisine at Stubborn can't get what we get here.' Also on the menu are Key West pink shrimp with charred shishito peppers, as well as seafood towers with shrimp, raw oysters, marinated clams and a tuna-coconut ceviche. A delicate, delicious poached wahoo crudo is served with charred cucumber vinegarette, Yuzu buttermilk emulsion, beans and mint. But some of the true delights of the restaurant showcase what has made Ford's restaurants so popular: vegetable-forward dishes with eye-popping complexity, with many ingredients sourced from the chef's farm. Memorable dishes include golden organic tomatoes — a Ford's Farm specialty — with stracciatella, Asian pear, zata'ar, herbs and basil oil. Two charred dishes, the jerk carrots with pickled tomatoes, spiced yogurt and herbs and the cauliflower with tahini cashew puree, sesame chili crisp, furikake and herbs, reveal startling new flavors with every bite. Ready for the next growing season Ford says that the farm-to-table options have been a hit with Keys residents. 'To be honest, tourists are going to come and go, but the locals that are here, I think, are really enjoying the farm fresh product that we're bringing,' he says. 'We're off to a great start.' The first season at the farm has turned out to be a good one, Ford says. At one point, they were harvesting 10 to 15 pounds of tomatoes a day. Now, though, the growing season is drawing to a close, and the restaurant will have to source its produce from other places. Ford's longtime friend and business partner Joe Mizzoni, who splits his time between Ford's Farm and Salt + Ash, says the team, which includes Salt + Ash chef de cuisine and partner Kyle Campbell, will be more experienced and better prepared for the 2025-2026 growing season. 'I know what grows consistently at a decent rate, what's good for producing for the restaurants, what size plots we need to maintain certain dishes at the restaurant,' he says. 'So we learned a lot of stuff. I would say we'll probably cut down by a third to a half of what we were growing, and grow more of the things that were consistent or we're using across the board.' Ford agrees with this assessment and says that the plan for summer is to cover the grounds with sorghum, a cover crop that can add nitrogen to the soil. 'Can we grow okra, eggplant and collard greens all summer long? 100 percent,' he says. 'We'll grow a couple of those items just because we want to have some stuff from the farm at the restaurant. 'But we're kind of looking forward to shutting it down more or less for the next four or five months. I think Joe and I and Kyle have all put hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears in the farm, and we realized for a farm to be successful, it needs a rest. As we all do. So we're gonna let that rest until probably September, then we'll start propagating seeds. But I think coming into 2025-26 season, we're much more prepared and organized for one hell of a season.' Salt + Ash Where: Hawks Cay Resort, 61 Hawks Cay Blvd., Duck Key Hours: 5-9 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday and Sunday; 5-10 p.m. Friday Saturday More information and reservations: or 305-289-2999
