Partage (Las Vegas)

[Wilfrid]

The last time I went to Partage must have been 2019. It was still à la carte. That changed a while back. It's all tasting menu now, but with some flexibility. Five, seven or nine courses ranging from $110 to $175. You can add foie gras, caviar or truffles to things at a supplement of course. There are wine pairings matching the numbers of courses; some flexibility here too, I ordered the 7 course menu and 5 glasses of wine. You can upgrade all the wine pairings to "premium." If you ate the top end tasting menu, threw ome luxury supplements on it and added a premium wine pairing, your check would be remarkable. But at least it's all laid out transparently.

The chef is Yuri Szarzewski and despite the name he is French from a small town in France. I was introduced to him after my meal. I suspect the reason is that the two bartenders (solo gets seated at the bar) and I got into some fairly granular conversations about New York restaurants and chefs, and with me still in the habit of photographing food they may have thought I was someone.

It is hard to do justice to the food. The menus have descriptions like "three appetizers" and "meat course," so the countless ingredients and accents are rattled off quickly by the person delivering the plate and you'd need shorthand to get a record of them. There was a lot going on in every dish.

[Wilfrid]

[Wilfrid]

I didn't take any notes, so forgive the vagueness. I did take notes for ten years when I was blogging.

Amuse was a bite of scallop.

A crunchy nest was formed on a base of bigeye tuna; I think that was a pea puree on top.

I already described the third dish, a knockout combination of very eel-like eel in a cruncy ball atop of moist, tender torchon or rabbit loin. This was a cornichon sauce.

Hen egg yolk to be broken over Serrano ham with some Spanish cheese puffs. A bit salty.

Those were my three appetizers.

Fish course was halibut with a halibut-stuffed morel and a tortellino stuffed with "I can't remember."

Meat course: Duck breast (danger!). It was good enough, a little chewy at one end, but perfectly acceptable. Above it a kind of squash-stuffed squash sausage which was very good, and above that some mixed, diced vegetables on a crispbread.

Cheese course: Slices of Beaufort over some kind of Beaufort fondant with crushed nuts.

Dessert course: I had seen massive plates of chocolate three ways served to diners around me. I just apologized and said I wasn't going to eat it. After a conference with the kitchen they came up with a kinder mascarpone and pastry thing and I did my best.

Wines: A 2019 Chablis Premier Cru, a 2021 white Cotes-du-Rhone (La Nerthe, Les Cassagnes), a 2021 Faiveley Mercurey and a really good 2019 Gigiondas (Semelles de Vent) that was generously topped up. I am missing the fifth wine. Oh well.

A cocktail to begin, an Armagnac to end. With tax and tip, on the way to $300. This is very fine dining and I am sure you could do much worse on the Strip at a higher price.

BTW, they have extended on one side to open a wine bar, and plan to extend into the property on the other side to increase kitchen size and covers.