I had dinner at famous chef’s restaurant and can sum it up in one word | Travel News | Travel

It’s not every day you get to marvel at a menu curated by a celebrity chef before indulging in their signature dishes at their restaurant, but there I was. It was a far cry from the pretentious white tablecloths and amuse-bouche, yet something much more exciting.

Celebrity restaurants have become a staple of the thriving food scenes around the world, with more opening every year as chefs put their names on the brand and expand their ventures. The UK alone has multiple celebrity chef restaurants from the likes of James Martin, Marco Pierre White, Rick Stein, Gordon Ramsay and Atul Kochhar, to name a few.

Even Celebrity MasterChef stars have gone on to open their own restaurants, including winner Steven Edwards, who launched etch. in Brighton and Hove, as well as Tom Simmons, who opened Thomas in Wales. That’s before we even factor in the famous chef restaurants all over the world, with Ramsay successfully expanding his business stateside.

I took a peep inside Ramsay’s iconic Hell’s Kitchen during a trip to Las Vegas, which boasts a wall of merch, a fancy-looking menu, and a life-size video of the chef himself greeting each guest on arrival. But I wasn’t there for Ramsay; I was there to sample the delights of another celebrity chef in his restaurant Best Friend, situated along the iconic Las Vegas strip in Park MGM resort.

Best Friend is the creation of Roy Choi, a Korean-American chef who partly founded the food truck movement and is famously known for « food that isn’t fancy ». He has a Netflix show titled ‘The Chef Show’ and the 2014 movie ‘Chef’ is loosely themed around Choi’s own experience, moving from a high-end restaurant to a thriving food truck.

Describing Las Vegas as his « second home », Choi opened Best Friend in December 2018, serving his « greatest hits » and mouthwatering dishes from his famous Kogi food trucks in Los Angeles. This sounded right up my street, so I was excited to visit, and its setting was immediately far from what I expected.

Walking into Best Friend is an experience in itself, with a vibrant bar, bodega and restaurant all in one. There are shelves stacked with colourful supermarket products behind glass counters, funky stickers covering a long table, and decorative neon signs before you even enter the restaurant itself.

Inside, there’s a DJ booth for lively evenings while dining with friends, eclectic graffiti walls and hanging plants on the ceiling, in an atmosphere that brings LA to Las Vegas. And Choi’s menu was just as inviting.

Based on street-style sharing plates, I was spoilt for choice on what dishes to devour from BBQ, bowls, LA s**t and even Vegas s**t, in a culinary journey of two worlds colliding. In a mouthwatering feast, I made my way through Korean wings, garlic chicken, BBQ ribs, grilled shrimp, marinated cucumbers, boneless ribeye, street corn, rib tacos and spiced pork – and it was exceptional.

Every dish presented to me was bursting with flavour, comfort and desire – all melting into one. I even found room to sample Choi’s Medjool date cake, strawberry shortie and famed Best Friend sundae – I just wish I had room to finish them all.

It was nothing like I had experienced before, the food and the setting. It was the elements of a food truck, curated into a vibrant restaurant with a fun, energetic vibe, and how I’d sum it up? It was totally unpretentious.

It affirmed to me that just because it’s a famous chef’s restaurant, it doesn’t need to be ostentatious or have a hefty price tag just because of the name behind the brand. At Best Friend, it offered incredible food and a great atmosphere at a reasonable cost. What more could you want?

I think I might have found my new favourite chef.

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