Las Vegas serves America’s best regional foods
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated that Whataburger has a Las Vegas location. The chain does not currently have a property in Las Vegas.
The food scene in Las Vegas is unrivaled, and the city is justifiably famous for its Michelin-starred celebrity chefs, over the top buffets and expense account indulgences. But it is also one of the best spots to easily try many of America’s trademark regional culinary specialties, a one-stop shop for everything from authentic Maine lobster rolls to New York City’s most famous Jewish deli sandwiches.
Virtually every regionally beloved fast food chain has a Las Vegas outpost. It is the only place in the country where you can choose between cult rivals In-N-Out Burger from the West Coast and Eastern legend White Castle. California’s Fatburger and even Cheeseburger at the Oasis, the mainland’s only offshoot of Hawaii’s popular Cheeseburger In Paradise group, can be found here, along with newer chains Smashburger, Umami Burger, and most recently, California-born, grass-fed natural patty specialist Burger Lounge, which just opened at Aria.
It’s similar for pizza; ever since Wolfgang Puck brought his unique California-style version here with Spago, which kicked off the whole Vegas celebrity chef and imported restaurant brand concept in 1992. You can still try the original smoked salmon version that put California-style pizza on the map, but Spago has been joined by the most authentic New York-style pizza at Di Fara, and real hard to find Detroit-style pizza at Pizza Rock.
The city is so popular with Hawaiian visitors that it is nicknamed “The Ninth Island,” and there is a surprising amount of authentic Hawaiian cuisine here, hard to find in most other major cities. One of the world’s best known cocktails, the margarita, is synonymous with Mexico, where it was invented at Hussong’s Cantina in Ensenada. Hussong’s only other locations in the world? In Mandalay Bay and at Boca Park in Summerlin.
America’s best regional foods are still worth trying at their source, and there is something more special about having a lobster roll at a picnic table on the rocky and rugged Maine coast than at the food court in Planet Hollywood’s Miracle Mile Shops, but if you cannot get to Maine or Hawaii this is the next best thing. And there is no other place in the world where you can have a slider from the folks who invented it and a margarita from the folks who invented it in the same day.
Browse the gallery above for a trail of America's regional specialties around Sin City.