At Chef’s Table’s first food festival in Park City this summer, the big-name dinners were only part of the fun. Nancy Silverton popped up with an ice cream cart and pizza parties stretched into the late afternoon. With dozens of acclaimed chefs cooking throughout town, there was plenty to plan a trip around, but just as much of the appeal came from what happened between the meals.
Now Chef’s Table is bringing that energy to Las Vegas and giving it a Wynn-sized upgrade. From September 18 through 20, Wynn Revelry by Chef’s Table will bring 35 acclaimed chefs from five continents under one roof, with everything from Thomas Keller’s take on the Las Vegas buffet to a midnight party at Encore Beach Club. As Chef’s Table Projects president Justin Connor puts it, “Vegas is the fun and excitement dials turned up to 11.”
The weekend is part of Chef’s Table’s move beyond the Netflix series and into live experiences, guided by the same idea behind the show: “Trust the chef.” Rather than the familiar festival race from station to station, Connor wanted to give chefs more room to cook and guests more time to experience it. “What we hope to do is just deliver more real storytelling experiences for the world’s best chefs,” he says.
Eighty years after the buffet first became part of the Las Vegas dining story, Wynn is handing the format over to some of the biggest names in food for one night of Champagne, abundance and a very different kind of buffet. The Icons Buffet takes over The Buffet at Wynn on Friday night with a lineup that includes Keller, Marcus Samuelsson, Michael White, and other huge culinary names.
Saturday’s The Feast takes over Wynn’s Event Pavilion and Lawn, with chefs cooking around fire, water, air and earth—with the latitude to try something a little more experimental than they would in their own restaurants.
For a closer look at how these chefs cook, Revelry Revealed offers smaller classes, tastings, and demonstrations throughout Wynn and Encore, including Dinara Kasko, a Ukrainian pastry chef and former architect, who will demonstrate the technology behind her geometric desserts, and acclaimed chef and restaurateur Doug Psaltis, who heads to the Wynn Golf Club to tackle the art of the perfect steak.
One of the weekend’s most intriguing pairings brings Rodolfo Guzmán of Chile’s Boragó together with Casa Playa Executive Chef Sarah Thompson for Sea, Soil & Fire. Connor says one of his favorite parts of putting these events together is asking chefs whom they would like to cook with and seeing where the answer leads. “There’s something so much fun about creating experiences that are truly unique,” he says.
Guzmán and Thompson make an especially interesting match, with distinctive visual styles and cooking deeply connected to place. “We don’t just showcase international chefs flying in,” Connor says. “We partner them with the incredible chefs that are at the Wynn to create magic.” Chilean pastry chef Camila Fiol will work with Wynn Executive Pastry Chef Jen Yee, while Los Angeles chef Keith Corbin joins Delilah Executive Chef Jonathan Bauman for a California Soul demonstration at the restaurant’s private chef’s table. At midnight, Club Gourmet takes over Encore Beach Club, pairing food and cocktails with a full-fledged Las Vegas pool-club party and giving chefs and guests a chance to mingle well outside the dining room.
Having all 35 chefs cooking and staying at Wynn also leaves room for what isn’t printed on the schedule. Connor expects “a ton of emerging experiences” simply because so many chefs will be together in one place. I saw that repeatedly in Park City, where a festival built around ambitious meals became just as memorable for its parties, conversations, pop-ups and the chance to interact with chefs outside the dining room.
It’s something Connor and his team want more of. As they look toward the next Park City festival, he says they’re considering more small pop-ups along with hikes, fly-fishing, farm visits and eventually music. The idea isn’t simply to gather great chefs in a destination, but to create more ways for guests to experience the people, places and culture around their cooking.
For Las Vegas, that means three days in which a Senegalese tea ceremony, a Thomas Keller buffet, a Chilean chef collaboration and a midnight party at Encore Beach Club can all share the same itinerary. It’s hard to imagine that weekend happening anywhere else.
