Sage Las Vegas Restaurant Review

Sage restaurant in Las Vegas describes themselves as a restaurant focusing on American cuisine spices with global influences that simplifies overcomplicated dishes and place emphasis on simple, clean flavors and seasonal ingredients. They undersell themselves a bit. What they really do is take known dishes and tried and true flavor combinations, break them down, remove superfluous elements and perfect every single little component. What’s left is as a dish that is both easy to enjoy, beautiful to look at and a spectacular showcase of technique and understanding of the ingredients.

Chef Shawn McClain is a San Diego native but he has made his professional career in Chicago where he first worked his way to executive chef at Trio in the mid 1990’s. He then left to open Spring (2001) and added Green Zebra (2004) and Custom House (2005), all in Chicago, to round out his portfolio. For his next restaurant, he hinted in an interview in 2008 that “… it may be an alternative concept, and it may be a larger restaurant that could be out of state.” In December 2009, Sage opened at the Aria Resort and Casino in the massive new CityCenter complex in Las Vegas.

Interior at Sage Las Vegas

Dark, golden and purple interior, but good lighting at the table.

Being situated close to the reception area at the Aria it can get quite crowded and noisy by the reception desk, but the walk through a short corridor made from wine racks leads to the bar and lounge area where it’s as if entering another world. Going further leads to the dining room that goes in dark golden colors with broken up with massive purple versions of classic artworks the walls. Even though it’s dark in the room every table is very well lit so that you can see what you eat properly. The scale is almost insane and the roof is way up there, but it works. You have privacy when sitting at a table but don’t fell alone and the acoustics is very good, muted with some background music. The staff is friendly, polite and very knowledgeable, does their job well and mostly keeps out of the way. Like the perfect butler, I suppose.

When seated and being asked to start with something to drink, do order a cocktail. Although most known as a restaurant, the bar is very good and makes some of the finest craft cocktails in Las Vegas, both classics as well as their own creations. The bar and lounge serves spectacular bar food as well. The wine pairings are both sensible priced and really works well, for the Signature menu there’s even some beer pairings. The wine list is reasonably deep with a better than anticipated selection of beers, something I assume goes with the theme of serving things that are just purely enjoyable and works with the American cuisine.

Tomato Master

The amuse bouche was a tomato soup where the tomatoes transported me right back to Tuscany, the first time I’ve had that experience since being there. Ripe, sweet, light and well balanced without the density and concentration that tomato soups and sauces so often has. The only negative during the dinner was the mini baguette served, bland and spongy without any crust at all they would’ve been much better off just serving the bacon bread.

Foie gras custard brulee at Sage Las Vegas

Foîe Gras Custard Brûlée.

For starters we had the Heirloom Baby Beets salad ($19) and the Foie Gras Custard “Brûlée” ($27). The beetroot salad looked very simple but somehow the beets were more than what they should’ve been and truly became the stars of this dish. The Brûlée is easily one of my favorite preparations of foie gras, only challenged by Marc Forgiones fused bacon and foie gras preparation. It gets its sweetness from apricot chutney and is served with a salted brioche. When eating it you can choose too eat it like a classic liver mousse spread with chutney on bread or as a crème brûlèe, it works either way and I like how they tie in its most known use when going a little experimental.

During my first visit to Sage in 2012 I had the beef tartar with a slow poached egg yolk as a starter and it was the first time I encountered the use of science and modern cooking techniques to simply enhance and perfect an otherwise natural ingredient. It was still an egg yolk but just perfect in its consistency, runny but not so runny as to splash out all over the plate. Prior to this I saw molecular gastronomy as something that’s pushing the boundaries and is a tool for creating new experiences, but this was a very natural experience, just enhanced. I think that this is one of the driving factors at Sage, looking separately at every component, understanding what it is and what it does for the dish and then perfecting it using all available means for the particular setting.

The Bacon-wrapped Iberico Pork Loin ($44) is delicate and far from the smoke house preparations we’re used to. For a masterclass in how to prepare decadent meat in the new school of cooking, the 36 Hour Wagyu Short Rib ($45) is a prime example. For someone unaccoustomed to what sous-vide cooking can do it can almost feel a little strange eating something so tender that’s still served medium-rare. Its a different kind of tender than from braising meat, almost soft, and the moisture is retained. The beef is served with a very rich sauce that the cherries balances and helps cut through.

Carrot cake mousse at Sage Las Vegas

Deconstructed Strawberry Napoleon.

Going to the desserts they are yet again a showcase of deconstructing and perfecting each element. The Strawberry Napoleon ($14) brings nothing more than a flake of the traditional base but makes up for it with a beautiful combination of perfect strawberries, whipped mascarpone, basil roe and balsamico reduction. Seeing it from across the table it’s quite hard to identify it as a Napoleon, but when you pick out the elements a lightbulb goes on. It’s another level of sophistication and the next evolution of the pastry, something far beyond even the Napoleons Jean-Philippe serves in his shop at Aria.

I love carrot cake and couldn’t help myself from choosing the Carrot Cake Mousse ($14), blending the traditional tastes in a carrot cake in the form of a mousse, ice cream and butter cake. A hearty version of the cake with contrasting textures and transformed to a fine dining dessert no more difficult to grasp than a classic carrot cake, but still so vastly different.

As previously stated, this was my second visit to Sage, the first was in July of 2012 and this time in June 2014. During this time it seems as if Sage has evolved further. The overall experience, application of technique and putting the dishes together is one notch further up the ladder. When looking at how they served the Foie Gras Brûlee on opening night it looks quite different from how it’s served now, for example.

Summing It Up

Sidecar at Sage Las Vegas

A classic Sidecar.

In terms of value and dinner experience for the money Sage is at the very top of my list. This three course a la carte dinner for two, with drinks and wine, landed a tab of $252. The three course “happy hour” early evening menu is $59 with a $29 wine or beer pairing, the four course Signature Tasting menu $89 with a wine or beer pariring for $44. I can’t think of any other place even close in value when factoring in the pairings.

Many dishes are transformed classics but they don’t require any thinking to appreciate and understand, you can just dig in and enjoy. I guess this shows the genius behind McClain’s menu at Sage, but it is both a blessing and a curse. What I get is certainly food that I don’t get to eat anywhere else and that provide new experiences. But as a guest neither my palate nor my mind is exactly challenged, not in the way it’s challanged at Twist by Pierre Gagnaire, for example.

I would rate Sage equal to Dinner by Heston Blumenthal in both overall experience and the technique used, something that puts it at a place that’s pretty much as good as it gets (and in the top 10 of the world’s best restaurants). However, being merely perfect is not enough to be the absolutely best, but I don’t want Sage to be that. I just want to keep it moving in the trajectory it already is.

Mains $37-59. Reservations recommended but usually not strictly needed. Aria Resort and Casino, Las Vegas. Open daily 17-23. http://www.aria.com/dining/restaurants/sage