Smith & Wollensky - Las Vegas — Restaurant in Paradise

First things first. The food was good. We had 11 people, and we all tried different things. My favorites were the beef carpaccio, the tomahawk and the bone in the fillet were great, the mac and cheese and mass potatoes were wonderful, and the crimbrulee and baked alaskan were fantastic.

Now for the Service: Or the lack of service i should say.

When I was told we were eating at smith and wollensky in the Venetian hotel. It conjured up this image of amazing food and amazing service.

I've heard nothing but great things about this restaurant, so I was excited to try it for the first time, but sadly, I've had better service at my local Ihop on a busy Saturday night, then i did here on a monday with a half full dining room.

We came in on Monday, Sept 18th, for our 8pm reservation. It was a wedding dinner for my friends from Australia.

We did not get seated until 8:25, so while we were waiting, we decided to get some drinks at the bar while we were waiting. When they told us our table was ready, we asked if we could transfer the drinks from the bar to the table.

Both the bartender and host were very adamant and stirn that we had to close out at the bar and that they don't do transfers at this restaurant. Even though one of our guests was paying for the whole meal.

During our dining experience, it felt like we were a 2nd thought to our waiter. I had to ask multiple times with other servers and server assistance for water refills.

There was no pre bussing done on our table, so it was covered in a lot of dirty plates and empty glasses most of the night. It got so bad that i finally stacked up as much of the plates as i could to give us room on our table.

Right before our main course came out is when they finally took all the empty plates off that table that had been sitting there for a long time.

The host of our party ordered a lot of wine for the table and i noticed at the end there were 2 extra full bottles of chardonnay open, even though we had just order a bottle of port, and a bottle of ice wine to have with dessert.

I also noticed that during our dinner, there were 3 to 4 servers, including our server standing at the bar polishing glasses, laughing, and having a good old time. Which would not be an issue if we had our server attending to us.

During our meal, I asked my server if he had a phone charger i could use because my battery was very low, and i needed it to call our ubers after dinner.

He asked me if it was an apple, and i said no, i needed a C-charger. He said we dont have that one and walked off.

I thought to my self "Surly some one in this place has a charger i could use." So i walked around and found the manger on duty in a side room talking with some of the other servers. I asked him if he had a charger i could use, and he said yes, he has one at the host stand. This was the only time i ever saw the manger the whole night.

We had a pretty large meal ticket that night, and i know we had gratuity added on so i fell like our server did not fell the need to do much for us because we were a guaranteed tip.

There was nothing exciting about our meal except the food. Nothing was mentioned by the server or management about the newlyweds. The only time I remember seeing our server was when he came around to ask if we wanted to order anything else. And it seemed like he was put off that he had to...

STAR RANKING: 4 Stars

OVERALL: I wanted to give this place 5 stars as its service, atmosphere, and overall food was great. My only problem was my personal entrée (sea bass) was horrible..

FAMILY FRIENDLY: Yes PET FRIENDLY: No PARKING: Shared – Venetian Parking Garage

FOOD/MENU: Extensive steakhouse menu that everyone one can find something on the menu (probably not a vegan but hey if you voluntarily decide to go to a steakhouse so that’s on you).

Complimentary Bread: No idea how it taste as I was holding out for actual food LOL I’m told by friends it was good.

Chilean Sea Bass (poblano sauce, fondant potato, pickled leeks, radish) $50.00: 1 Stars – the fish was cooked perfectly but you couldn’t taste any of it as the poblano sauce was overwhelmed by lemon. Literally all you taste with every bite of the entrée was lemon. So much that it puckered your cheeks.

Seared Norwegian Salmon (split pea, bacon and winter vegetable ragu) $44.00: 3 Stars – Okay hear me out… Salmon was cooked well but I’m not a great salmon fan unless its sashimi style… this sounded kind of good on paper but I think what we read was not what we pictured in our head… we thought there would be a sauce with the salmon, instead of dry split pea and diced veggies.

Maine Lobster Tail $19.00: 5 Stars – cooked perfectly and not overly season. Totally worth the $20 price tag

Truffle Mac and Cheese $20: 4 Stars – really good mac and cheese and I loved their use of campanelle instead of elbow pasta.

Gigantic Chocolate Cake (decadent, ten layer chocolate cake brushed with baileys Irish cream, chocolate mousse and covered with ganache) $18.00: 4 Stars - This is an extremely rice cake and very tasty. The only thing I would say is the cake itself, the sponge, was a little dry but the mousse makes up for it.

Coconut Crème Cake (toasted coconut, caramel, crisp coconut tuile) $13.00: 4 Stars - I’m not a coconut fan so I didn’t think I would like it. This wasn’t bad, light coconut taste, and the sponge was better than the chocolate cake.

DRINKS: 2019 Marques de Riscal Rioja Reserva Tempranillo $77: Totally worth the splurge.

RESTAURANT/SERVICE: Restaurant location is crazy hard to find. Each person in our party was walking around in circles trying to find it. I alone, walked 3 circles before I found it… This was really NOT easy to find.

Upon arrival, once you finally find the restaurant, you enter a small area that is the bar that you can wait until your table is ready. Once your table is ready, they take you up the stairs/elevator and the full restaurant is on the 2nd floor. Its extremely large considering how small the first floor is. The look is very classic or maybe even “Stereotypical” steakhouse look and feel.

Great service as to be expected at a high end steak house. All staff were in clean, crisp uniform and definitely had the hospitality and customer service down, something ive been missing since...

My wife and I have found ourselves in town to celebrate our daughter's wedding .Let me tell you Las Vegas is a shell of it's former self . We decided that we would have at least one date night dinner while we were here and we searched and researched and read reviews to find just the right place knowing it was going to be expensive we did not want to be wrong. We looked at all the articles on top steakhouses in Vegas. We decided on a place in the middle of the strip and were looking forward to it and booked a reservation on open table. Well we were shocked to find out upon going to dinner said restaurant was closed as was the entire hotel it was housed in . Due to low demand some hotels are closing midweek. A message stating they would not be able to honor our reservation would have been a welcome communication . Here is where Smith & Wollensky comes into this review this place should be 10 stars seriously . Earlier in the day we had wandered the Shoppes at the Canal in the Venetian Hotel and had walked by it. I decided to give it a shot not wanting to put a bunch more time into trying to find a suitable replacement having already been disappointed. The food was incredible and the service impeccable . Have no doubt it is expensive. However, completely in line with the level of service and quality of food . We decided on a few appetizers and drinks . Get the Fire and Ice and do not miss out on the Angry Shrimp. For our entree we chose the hanging Tomahawk steak with the roasted potatoes. Our server Matt was awesome and extremely attentive without being intrusive .He smartly suggested we get half orders of sides and we chose truffle mac and cheese , creamed spinach, and roasted beets and butternut squash. Flavors were great except the spinach it wasn't bad but it lacked the flavor punch that every other dish had. Matt promptly removed it from the bill. The table side service and attention to detail was phenomenal . This restaurant must be on the top steakhouses in Las Vegas and since it is not I am here to spread the word . To top off the night Matt brought us a dessert for our celebration and packed up our leftovers and added extra dinner rolls in order to...