Michael Mina's new, and first steak restaurant, Stripsteak at Mandalay Bay is a $7-million visual stunner and a temple of top-taste treats. It's his 4th Vegas restaurant and the first combination restaurant and ultra-lounge in town! Staffed by some of our city's most beautiful mini-skirted female servers, his menu also contains some stunning attractions: one of the only two bottles of scotch in the world; 200-years-old and costing $25,000! Individual shots of the 1805 Scotch are a mere $700 a glass!!! He has 118 different single malts, chilled with 2-by-2 inch ice cubes, for diners to choose from but the highlight is the 121-proof Johnny Walker blue label! His own steak favorite is the 8 oz. Ribcap for just $62. But, if your wallet bulges bigger, then try the ribeye kobe priced at $170 or bust-out and go for the $195 Filet Mignon kobe. At the VIP opening party, hometown hero and tennis champion Andre Agassi, his good friend and financial business partner; fellow celebrity chef Todd English, Mandalay president Bill Hornbuckle joined Michael's high school friends he'd flown in for the Cristal champagne celebration! Said Bill: "Michael is a brilliant chef and we're thrilled to have him. His understanding of exceptional cuisine and his versatility make him a star attraction for our resort." A Japanese design firm, SuperPotato, created the unique restaurant with four projectors that throw images of flowing water onto large ceiling panels, a 3-sided glass bar plus a large picture window so diners can peek into the kitchen with its two imposing mesquite wood-fired grills. With go-go-dancers, hammock-swinging bikini beauties and body-painting models on hand for the opening, the restaurant and lounge had the stamp of success firmly imprinted on the world's most unique nightspot.
As the debut wound down, my old friend Michael took time out for the one exclusive interview of the night:
RL: Why did you finally decide to do a steak restaurant?
MM: I have always enjoyed cooking meat and being involved with meat. I grew up in the center of Washington State and it was very much farm country. I have always enjoyed doing plays on classic American dishes and just American cooking. A steakhouse is an extension of one of the forms of American cooking. I think the demographic of people that come through Las Vegas, probably a fair majority of them enjoy steak and so almost every casino has a steakhouse in it.
RL: This is somewhat top of the line. On the menu you have $170 for a rib eye cut. $195 for a filet mignon cut, is this what people want when they come to Vegas?
MM: Well, those are just items that are imported from Japan. The border just opened up again so it is Kobe. Looking at the menu as a whole, the direction that we wanted to go was more of it being somewhat familiar items and then when they receive the items. It is about quality and the product and how it is treated and that to me the biggest thing is how you treat the steaks and work with the meat. We have our own dry age process where we dry-age all of our meats and then we have the wood-burning grills where week cook everything over mesquite, which is not very common in Las Vegas. There are barely any places here that I can name that actually cook over wood. We slow cook a lot of our meats in butters and oils before we grill them on the grill.
RL: How fascinating it is to see the flames coming up from the kitchen because the fire dept. had to come in here and give you special instructions on how to cook like this?
MM: It is the hoods. In Las Vegas you have to have hoods that have water flowing through them and the water scrubs the hoods and the flames coming up. So it is just a special kind of hood and there is a cost associated with it,but to me it is worth it. To me the most important thing about a steakhouse is how the meat is cooked.
RL: How do you make certain that people walk away saying that was the best steak I ever ate?
MM: Well, once again, that is the goal and you start with ...
... the product. All of our meat is all natural and we have all natural angus thatis corn fed and all natural American Kobe and all natural Japanese Kobe and we take it and we slow poach a lot of out meats in butter and oil a nice olive oil and we finish it on a wood burning grill so our meat stay tender and juicy but still has the char and the flavor of the wood.
RL: So the food is the biggest attraction to this place, but in a sense this is a rock and roll hang out. The music is playing loud and it is an ultra lounge combined with restaurant and the most gorgeous serversI have ever seen in my life. Was that a deliberate intention for Strip Steak?
MM: Yes, I think we did it to have energy. This is a little bit different of a restaurant then I am used to. The intent was to look at the demographic where you are opening and Mandalay Bay is fun. It has the best clientele; they are young and fun and kind of clubby type of bars and we thought there was room for this in the casino.
RL: You have mixed steak with seafood and a little Japanese. What was the mission statement for the restaurant that you set for yourself?
MM: Once again, it all came down to having seafood as well as the best steaks on the menu, and a lot of it to me was to have these wood burning grills and to have a piece of seafood cooked on these with the vinaigrette on it just becomes my own personal favorite thing. The Japanese influence is great. I just got back from Japan so I have a little more right now, but I fell in love with their approach and letting the products speak for them selves.
RL: There is an irony there. When you think of Japan you think of sushi and sashimi you don't really think of steaks, but they are the master's of that cuisine as well?
MM: Absolutely. When they set their sights on anything they want to perfect they seem to do whatever it takes.
RL: Vegas is still in my opinion the number one restaurant capital in the world, but still not the number one by a lot of people. Yet our food is better, our service is better. Where do you place Vegas at the moment in terms of visitor's appreciation and where the city is held in esteem for people in the industry?
MM: Well I think that what is going on now in Las Vegas. What you see is everybody, when they are building a new restaurant or a hotel that is going to have food and beverage in it, the first place they come is Vegas, so that says something. I am not going to rank it as a city, but it definitely says something that everybody comes here when they are building something. But the trend that started in Vegas is the bigger bustling louder restaurants and now you see that in New York and other cities.
RL: Let's go back to when you were still at school and you were watching a funny little TV show.
MM: I was 16 and I was watching you on 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' and I had been cooking for 2 years and I didn't know that I could make a career out of it and you were doing your show, interviewing Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San Francisco. I just woke up the next day found out where I could go to cooking school. I love San Francisco and ended up going to cooking school after watching your show.
RL: Did you leave your heart in San Francisco or are you more committed to Vegas these days?
MM: San Francisco is home and it always will be, but I love Las Vegas too. The energy in the dining rooms is totally different then it is in San Francisco, and my whole company is set up here, and so the MGM/Mirage team has been so good to me and have given me a platform that anyone would kill to have. RL: So, with 4 restaurants now and 3 hotels MGM, Mirage, and Mandalay, do you want to do more? Is there something else to conquer here in Vegas?
MM: Well, there are always things. Las Vegas doesn't seem to be slowing down and as long as I am involved with MGM/Mirage, whatever they show interest in me being involved in something I enjoy coming up with new ideas and concepts.
RL: Go back to when you were 16, did you ever think that you could accomplish what you have and how did that journey reach such a successful conclusion?
MM: You know, I never thought I could accomplish what I did; I didn't even know that you could make a career out of being a chef back then. But I have been a very driven person all my life and I definitely am a person when I set my mind on something and as I learn more I started setting my sight. I worked with Charlie Palmer and when I was younger I worked in New York and that really realized what level I would like to take this to. I have been very driven and it is one of those things that you start to surround yourself with really good people and then things become a lot easier.
RL: You have cooked for kings and queens and for Laura Bush, is it stressful cooking for that A+ level of people?
MM: Absolutely. First they are particular about what they are going to eat, so you have you have to gear yourself around what they want because they are used to that being the situation for them. Secondly I think that I have been extremely fortunate with the people I have been able to meet in this business and it is mind boggling. I have been fortunate enough to meet 75% of my idols when I was growing up and cook for in my ownrestaurants where they are in my home so you feel much better about approaching them and so there is a stress level, but I have been very fortunate.
RL: If you hadn't become a chef where would you have been?
MM: I would have liked to go into advertising; I like the creative part of that or a sports writer.
RL: Is every night an opening night as a chef?
MM: My favorite part of my job is service. Everything we do in the daytime, office work doesn't motivate me, and service motivates me. Walking into a restaurant and having it bustle and seeing the energy of the customers and the staff. I can be in any mood and walk in and service is service. In a lot of sense it is an opening night because every night is so important. I am trying to create memories for people.
