The Greatest Guess on the Las Vegas Strip? Its First Vegan Brunch Buffet

For higher or worse, Las Vegas is the birthplace of all-you-can-eat buffets, which have been giving patrons infinite meals choices to nosh on because the Forties. And now, the Strip’s first plant-based brunch buffet has entered the highlight because of Crossroads Kitchen—a fine-dining restaurant from superstar chef Tal Ronnen and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. 

Meg Blair

Based mostly in Los Angeles, Crossroads Kitchen opened its second location final yr contained in the Resorts World Las Vegas as the primary plant-based fine-dining restaurant on the Strip. Quick-forward one yr, and Crossroads is now dwelling to a different first: an all-you-can-eat vegan Sunday brunch buffet with a wide array of stations full of candy and savory choices.

This idea arose from a profitable Mom’s Day brunch that Crossroads Las Vegas hosted this yr. The thought right here, Ronnen says, is to proceed to push the envelope about what vegan meals will be. 

“We’ve at all times needed to introduce ideas that folks may by no means think about would exist within the vegan world,” Ronnen tells VegNews. “After we opened our doorways at Crossroads Melrose 10 years in the past, there have been no white tablecloth vegan eating places with a full bar in LA, if you happen to can imagine it.”

In Los Angeles, Crossroads is revered by superstar clientele who flock to the vegan restaurant for its snug ambiance and top-notch service. And, in fact, its ingenious vegan meals. 

Crossroads Kitchen

“We additionally attempt to be revolutionary with meals like our carrot lox, which we launched 9 years in the past for brunch,” the chef says. “Now you see carrot lox on so many menus, and the identical goes for our signature seafood tower.” 

The primary vegan brunch buffet on the Las Vegas strip

This meals philosophy is absolutely articulated throughout Crossroads Las Vegas’ new Sunday brunch service within the type of a bagel show the place visitors can select from toppers reminiscent of carrot lox, smoked whitefish salad, sliced tomato, sliced pink onion, marinated cucumbers, kelp caviar, olive and pimento cream cheese, and chive cream cheese. 

For candy brunch lovers, there are in a single day oats, strawberry parfaits, particular person fruit plates, pancakes, and stuffed French toast to select from, together with a fruit station that provides additional pizzazz. 

Savory choices are huge, too, with Hen and Waffles, Eggs Benedict Florentine, and a bevy of facet dishes of Rosti potatoes, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and breakfast sausages. 

Jakob Layman

A salad station with choices reminiscent of Romaine Caesar and Spring Chopped Salad brings issues into the lunch sphere with a pasta station (at present serving spicy rigatoni) to nudge the choices again to Ronnen’s love of Italian and Mediterranean fare. There’s additionally a dessert station. 

All of that is the subsequent piece of a narrative that Ronnen began along with Crossroads Government Chef Scot Jones to place vegan Italian meals on the map in a approach diners have by no means seen earlier than. 

“Scot and I additionally opened the primary vegan Italian restaurant in 2007 with musician Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders in Akron, Ohio. There was no vegan Italian meals within the US again then,” Ronnen remembers. “Now, it’s actually on the core of Crossroads and has been since we opened.” 

“Merely put, we prefer to fill within the holes for what folks may not assume they may have in a vegan way of life,” Ronnen says.

The historic vegan brunch buffet at Crossroads Las Vegas will probably be obtainable each Sunday all through the summer time for $49 per individual. The overarching idea right here is to ship a wow issue to the various demographic that visits Crossroads in Las Vegas from everywhere in the world. 

“We’ve got a number of visitors who should not vegan or vegetarian, so having a buffet providing is an effective way for them to style across the menu,” Ronnen says. 

“We’d like people to know whether or not they’re vegan or not, they will take pleasure in a traditional brunch buffet with us each Sunday this summer time and if it does nicely, we are going to proceed after that.”

Crossroads takes on Las Vegas

In March, Crossroads celebrated its 10-year anniversary at its flagship Los Angeles location in type with a collaborative dinner that introduced collectively a number of the business’s most celebrated cooks, together with Ronnen, Nancy Silverton, Daniel Humm, and Michael Volatggio.

Whereas Ronnen isn’t focused on aggressively increasing the idea, Crossroads did open a 3rd location in Calabasas, CA earlier this yr. 

Meg Blair

In Las Vegas, Crossroads is now headed into its second yr in operation and Ronnen has discovered a number of issues alongside the way in which. 

“The client base adjustments greater than wherever. Individuals come and go from all components of the world,” Ronnen says. “Individuals additionally anticipate the most effective service in Las Vegas.”

The day by day menu right here is constructed round its traditional, pasta-forward dishes however with correct Vegas flare and two tasting menus. Ronnen retains issues fascinating with baked mushroom scallops served Rockafeller type; eggplant-based skirt steaks with mashed potatoes and a brandy cream sauce hollandaise; and various ingenious cocktails like The Iowan (bourbon-based with successful of corn milk in honor of the agrarian state) or the Fairly Fly for a Mai Tai (a tropical rum concoction and nod to the ‘90s Offspring music).

Jakob Layman

“There are such a lot of fine-dining eating places on the strip and we actually needed to up our sport with conventional steps of service for a fine-dining restaurant,” the chef says. “Some flashier cocktails and desserts additionally go a good distance.”

Anna Starostinetskaya is the Senior Information Editor at VegNews and is at all times maintaining a tally of all issues vegan in her dwelling metropolis of San Francisco, CA and in all places else.