Steve Wynn has decreed that all restaurants in his Las Vegas properties must offer Vegan options to diners. Al Mancini at Las Vegas CityLife has detailed the offerings at many of restaurants at Wynn and Encore. A sampling includes:
Tableau: creamy corn soup; roasted beet salad; napoleon of savory tofu; almond or soy milk latte
Terrace Point Café: soba seaweed salad; ratatouille bruschetta; Asian pockets of stuffed tofu
Wazuzu: California fried rice; vegan crunch roll; braised tofu with green beans
The Country Club: watermelon gazpacho; sweet corn chowder; chilled heirloom tomato soup; sesame seared tofu salad; tossed cob salad
Evidently if you partake of a Vegan Diet, a fondness of tofu is a must.
So, what exactly is a “Vegan”, a vegan adheres to a much stricter diet than a vegetarian, not only are meat products not allowed, dairy products are not allowed, nor are ingredients that have any animal by-products, like gelatin.
Steve Wynn is rumored to have gone vegan himself. While Steve Friess noted in his AOL story, that Wynn’s PR people declined to comment on Steve’s dietary choices, Max Jacobson noted in his recent story High-end Vegan
“In honor of his boss Steve Wynn’s recent commitment to veganism, Stratta tells me he is working on a vegan menu.”
The Vegan decree puts a lot of pressure on chefs at Wynn, to come up with palatable dishes, to please a rather small target market. According to a 2002 Time/CNN poll 4% of Americans identify themselves as vegetarians, and of vegetarians, roughly 5% are vegans, hence roughly 0.2% of Americans are Vegan.
As Steve Friess notes in his story, none is this Vegas food is cheap:
the tofu carpaccio appetizer is $14 and a mushroom polenta cake entree is $32 both in line with meaty menu options.
In a city where everyone follows closely what Steve Wynn does, it will be interesting to see if other Las Vegas casinos follows Steve’s lead on the Vegan front.
