When Best Friend opened at Park MGM in December 2018, chef Roy Choi set it up as a “kind of greatest hits” of his career. He wanted to bring Korean tacos from his game-changing Kogi trucks in Los Angeles and also celebrate dishes from his other L.A. ventures, including comforting rice-bowl slinger Chego and soul-stirring stew spot Pot.
“It was like a residency where they could hear all the hit songs,” Choi says. “I thought that was the way we had to go. And then like anything in life, things evolved. The restaurant has become so much more than that. Vegas is my second home, and the restaurant has become its own thing.”
Welcome to Roy Choi’s Las Vegas. He’s still showcasing his history as Best Friend serves Kogi short rib tacos, Chego pork belly bowls and spicy kimchi-laden stew. He continues to champion the flavors of Los Angeles in other dishes, like Yang Chow-inspired slippery shrimp and a riff on Mexican street corn. But it’s important for Choi — who recently released a new cookbook The Choi of Cooking—to constantly grow his discography.
The New Dishes
Choi comes to Las Vegas two to three times a month and changes the Best Friend menu quarterly with dishes that are exclusive to the restaurant. “We do a whole grilled fish, kind of like Mexico City-style, but with our own salsa macha mixed with some Korean flavors,” he says.
Choi is also proud of his aguachile (scallop, chicharrón, avocado, tomatillo, kiwi) as he keeps demonstrating his prowess for blending different flavors and cultures.
He’s enhanced Best Friend’s barbecue section with Southside sticky ribs. He’s amped up his steak offerings by serving bulgogi rib eyes with salt-and-pepper lobster tails. “We’ve expanded on a lot of new flavors but always kept it true to what Best Friend really tastes like and feels like,” he says.
A Cookbook for Everyone, Everyday
When Choi wrote The Choi of Cooking, he thought about how he can’t always be at his Kogi trucks and Best Friend. “I can’t be there every day, but that doesn’t mean I want the places to be vanilla or mediocre,” he says. “I hope that they are still relevant and make people happy and that when guests put something in their mouth, the flavors pop. But for that to happen without touching the food every day, it really relies on the recipes.”
Choi says it’s about giving up your ego and realizing that other people can make your food well with the proper guidance. And in The Choi of Cooking, he’s here to teach home cooks how to prepare yuzu aguachile, kimchi steak tacos, Asian marinades, salsas and stews that will remind them of Best Friend.
“This book is a book where it’s not about me showing you how complicated of a chef I am,” he says. “It’s more of a book of like, hey, I’ve worked 30 years to whittle these recipes down to where they don't sacrifice any of the flavor or pungency or layering, but the steps have been truncated to apply them to your life.”
A Student of Las Vegas
“I've been following Las Vegas for 25, 30 years,” Choi says. “I was following the first iteration of Elilzabeth Blau at the Bellagio, the transition from shrimp cocktail. I remember Todd English and Olives.” Before he opened in Las Vegas, Choi made a point of reaching out to chefs who had found huge success here. And he was heartened by their willingness to chat.
“I got to know Michael Mina, Akira Back, Dave Chang, Wolfgang Puck,” Choi says. I never thought that this was in my trajectory. I wasn’t even thinking about it. It’s like I wouldn’t expect to be invited to Jeff Bezos’s wedding. I wanted to come into Vegas, heart on my sleeve, and that meant reaching out to the chefs instead of being scared of them or being clandestine. I wanted to be like, ‘I’m coming. I want to honor everything you’ve done.'"
Choi is too humble to take credit for adding dimensions to Las Vegas dining that influenced the future. But it's not lost on him that Simon Kim’s Cote will soon be bringing Korean barbecue to the Venetian, where terrific hypebeast-loved spots like Howlin’ Ray’s and Scarr’s Pizza recently debuted. “I don’t care if I ever get credited for what happened with the Korean taco or gourmet food trucks or whatever,” Choi says. “I hope that it was just something that was naturally supposed to happen.”
Where to Go Off-Strip with Your Best Friends
Choi likes to eat late-night at Herbs & Rye, when many hospitality-industry folks roll in after work and enjoy post-midnight happy hour with half-price steaks. “It reminds me of Best Friend,” he says. “The music’s loud. The place is bumping. The hospitality is on point, technically, but they’re not pretentious about it. I really love that place.”
Choi goes to Rainbow Kitchen when he’s craving dim sum. “I like that whole area of Vegas,” he says. “It’s like the new Chinatown. It’s like manifest density. It’s a rainbow of Asian food.”
One thing that makes him happy is how food has gotten more approachable and multicultural in Las Vegas as guests appreciate high-energy dining that favors bold flavors over sparklers, foams, caviar and gold leaf.
And then, of course, there’s the wondrous experience of heading to the original Chinatown, crawling Spring Mountain Road and eating the Asian food there, too. “I still go to Spring Mountain late at night to get some pho,” he says. “It’s always funny to walk in at 2 a.m. to Pho Kim Long. That name never gets old.”
