Carversteak offers fine-dining touches with the food and a 21-metre-long LCD screen spanning the bar
As a longtime hospitality entrepreneur and former casino executive, Las Vegas scene-builder Sean Christie has been deeply involved in blockbuster openings like Encore Beach Club, Roy Choi’s Best Friend and the Mayfair Supper Club. Now he’s got a new company, Carver Road Hospitality, that’s developing restaurants and bars all over the country. And he’s getting ready to put his spin on a quintessential Vegas experience: the steakhouse dinner.
Carversteak will open at the new Resorts World Las Vegas casino on 30 December 2021.
“I really want to go back to my core roots,” says Christie, who’s also creating the Flanker Kitchen + Sporting Club in Salt Lake City and both a restaurant and a rooftop bar at Jason Pomeranc’s forthcoming Civilian Hotel in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen area. “What I really want to do is what I’m doing now, building a company from the ground up and really just trying to wow people.”
At Carversteak, this means spending almost $1.5 million on audio-visual elements, including a giant LCD screen that spans the length of a 70-foot bar and will display animated art. The screen could also be used for welcome messages during private gatherings or occasionally turn into a huge television for sporting events.
“The space has to be able to transform, especially in Las Vegas,” Christie says. “It changes depending on what convention, what fight, what concert’s going on.”
Christie and chef Daniel Ontiveros (who previously cooked at Bouchon, Joël Robuchon and the Scotch 80 Prime steakhouse) want dinner at Carversteak to be an interactive affair. Servers will present a wooden box with five kinds of custom-made knives featuring different blades and distinct handle designs.
“It’s kind of a ‘choose your own weapon,’ if you will,” Ontiveros says. ”I think it’s just a cool experience. It’s going to be a fun talking point.”
After selecting a knife, guests can enjoy Allen Brothers bone-in filets (part of a filet section of the menu that also features bison filets), dry-aged Flannery Beef rib eyes and American wagyu tomahawks with the Carversteak logo etched onto the bone by famed butcher Pat LaFrieda. Carversteak will also serve Japanese wagyu, including Miyazaki A5 strip loins, and Australian wagyu.
Steaks, brushed with a compound butter that includes shallots and reduced red wine, will be cooked on Montague broilers that can get up to 1,200 degrees. The butter is one of many thoughtful touches on a menu that involves Ontiveros merging classic steakhouse fare with his Vegas fine-dining background.
“It’s a challenge because there’s a lot of people who say you can’t do fine dining in steakhouses,” Ontiveros says. “I’m a firm believer that’s not the case.”