Review: Amalfi by Bobby Flay or Giada de Laurentiiss’ Restaurant in Las Vegas?
For our recent 10-day family trip to Las Vegas, we're mixing up our restaurant review format and pitting 2 Iron Chefs against one another in an Italian restaurant battle royale!
Chef Bobby Flay and Chef Giada De Laurentiis have a new show on Discovery+ called Bobby and Giada In Italy and of course we're huge fans. And since Bobby revamped his Mesa Grill during the COVID shutdown and just opened it back up as Amalfi, we decided to set up our own little Vegas Strip Italian Restaurant Throwdown!
We both love Bobby, but Erin predicted that Amalfi would be the best Italian on the Las Vegas strip. Phil said that while Bobby's a phenomenal chef, there's no way he can out-Italian Giada, whose namesake restaurant happens to be right across the street. So we decided to put our money where our mouths are, fly the family to Vegas, and try both restaurants to see which one comes out on top!
Of course a friendly wager was warranted, so we agreed that if Amalfi won, Phil would fly the family to Italy next month, but if Giada won, Erin would fly the family to the Cannes Yacht Show in the French Riviera next month.
So who wins? Watch and see (and be sure to catch our own little throwdown at the end of the episode!)
Contents:
0:00 Intro to Bobby Flay’s Amalfi and Giada de Laurentiis’ Restaurant in Las Vegas
11:42 The Judging and Review
15:50 Home Throwdown
12:54 Outro
Full Transcript:
Intro to Bobby Flay’s Amalfi and Giada de Laurentiis’ Restaurant in Las Vegas
Erin:
I'm Erin and I'm lucky enough to travel the world with my extraordinary husband, Phil and our three incredible kids. After nearly a year of trips to exotic destinations, like Riviera Maya, Costa Rica, and Belize we found ourselves spending 10 days in a 45th floor residence above the Las Vegas strip. In addition to seeing the typical sites, we were on a culinary mission, inspired by the new cultural cooking show called Bobby and Giada in Italy.
Phil:
We came here to Las Vegas for only two reasons. The first to celebrate Colt's ninth birthday in style, and second to settle a little debate, Erin and I have going about two great restaurants here on the strip.
Erin:
Yes, Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill has been a favorite of ours for years, but he just reopened as Amalfi, an Italian restaurant. So as soon as we heard about it, we knew we had to try it.
Phil:
Yeah. We both love Bobby, but Erin said she predicts that Amalfi's going to be the best Italian restaurant on the strip now. Bobby's a phenomenal chef, but there's no way he's going to be able to out Italian his co-star Giada De Laurentiis whose namesake restaurant happens to be right across the street.
Erin:
So I told Phil to put our money where his mouth is and fly us out to Vegas. So we could try each restaurant. Unbeknownst to them, we are pitting Bobby against Giada in our own little Vegas restaurant throw down.
Phil:
So we're going to film our dinner at each restaurant, and then we're going to judge each one based on their food cocktails and atmosphere to determine which one of these chefs comes out on top.
Erin:
If Almalfi wins, you have to take the family to Italy next month.
Phil:
Okay, fine. But if Giada wins, you have to take the family to the [inaudible 00:01:37] show on the French Riviera next month.
Erin:
Okay. Deal. Now we've got to get ready because we have dinner reservations at Amalfi at seven.
Dinner at Bobby Flay’s Amalfi in Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas
Phil:
Can I get a kiss on it?
Erin:
Let's hit it. I'm pretty excited. I'm going to go with the toliani, yeah.
Phil:
I'm going to do something pretty traditional. How about the belini? Yeah, thank you.
Erin:
Well, we are in for a treat tonight. I have a feeling that we're going to be going to Tuscany.
Phil:
No doubt, it's going to be really good. I have no idea what we're going to get, because it's pretty sizeable menu, but I'm sure we can find some pretty amazing things on here. And apparently they have a fish bar over here, a viewing area where we can go and see some of these cool fish like we've seen at other restaurants. Maybe pick one of those out. I bet that'd be pretty phenomenal.
Erin:
The shrimp looks good. The snapper looks good. Striped bass and the Brunzino looks delicious, but I really want that spicy pesto that's on the menu. So I think I'm going to go with whatever is going to go well with that pesto. Cheers to Bobby, congratulations on your new restaurant.
Phil:
All right, now let's try this belini. That's perfect. But this is great timing, yeah. Okay. Well, I'll say this since it's up to you to make sure Bobby wins, I think you need to pick what we get tonight. So I'm going to leave it up to you and then when we're Giada's tomorrow, I'll pick, okay? Better be good. Do you like bigger piece or tentacley-er?
Brooklyn:
Tentacley-er.
Phil:
There we go.
Brooklyn:
Thank you.
Phil:
Oh yes. Those are the lemon leaves they were talking about. Yeah?
Erin:
Finchetta. Our waiter sold me on this mozzarella. That is different, that is so good. I always hear about people saying that the mozzarella in Italy is different. That is delicious and I do taste a little lemon from the leaves.
Phil:
Yeah, that's good.
Erin:
Our waiter also sold us on the octopus. He said it is the best appetizer on the menu. What? It's so good. This up to the hype and expectation. This is the agnolotti, it is stuffed of ricotta and some other goodness herbs. And I cannot wait to try it, it looks so good. And it's in this like lemony sauce too. Here it comes. This agnolotti is delicious. We had agnolotti lot at Wolfgang Puck's Spago, and I think this rivals it big time, I think Bobby might beat Wolfgang too.
Phil:
Well, maybe they should do a throw down. All right, I have to admit, that's pretty good. Brilliant.
Colt:
That's really good.
Erin:
Colt loves to agnolotti too. And the kids are also the judges, Bobby's winning already and we have more pasta to try. And this is extra special because we didn't order it, it's from the chef. He brought it out to our table for us and we can't wait to try it. It's the orecchiette bolognese but she said it's vegetarian so it's made with eggplant instead of meat. So I'm going to get some of this. It looks like a whipped ricotta. That is good. That is like an eggplant cream taste. Man, Bobby nails it.
Phil:
All right, Bobby, I got to hand it to you, it's the first carb I've had all week, it's pretty good.
Erin:
I chose the red snapper because I knew it was going to pair the best with the red pepper stoe. It looks delicious and it's a little spicy and I like it hot.
Colt:
It's really good.
Erin:
Really good fish, cooked perfectly. It's like meaty and flaky all at once.
Phil:
Really good fish, real good.
Erin:
We cleaned up, that was delicious.
Phil:
All right, they actually just brought us the dessert menu. And I have to say, this is the most phenomenal dessert menu I've ever seen in my life.
Brooklyn:
I'm going to do Lemon Lemon Lemon.
Phil:
Can I have some? Did you just eat the whole thing?
Brooklyn:
It was pretty sour.
Phil:
She just ate that whole dessert.
Brooklyn:
It was literally so sour.
Erin:
In addition to the Lemon Lemon Lemon, they brought Bobby's Pistachio Sunday, which is pistachio gelato, chocolate sauce and dark cherries, and little crumbles. Each dish we had was yummy.
Phil:
And this was a fantastic meal. So yeah, Giada has her work cut out for her tomorrow. Right, babe?
Erin:
All right, we'll see you at Giada's tomorrow!
Dinner at Giada Restaurant in Las Vegas
Phil:
Well, last night at Amalfi was fantastic because it was an amazing meal. It was amazing service, amazing atmosphere. Bobby's definitely killing it.
Erin:
So true.
Phil:
But we are now off to Giada and we have really high hopes, especially me, because I want her to win.
Erin:
We're coming for you, Giada. So something we didn't see at Bobby's was a tasting menu. Giada has her tasting menu and it comes with a recipe. I think we might need to do the tasting menu.
Phil:
Okay. Done. I'm in, let's do it.
Erin:
This view is outstanding. It is so pretty. We can see the Bellagio Fountain from here and the lighting, the ceilings are high. She's got it on atmosphere maybe. This is one of their specialty cocktails, it is a White Cosmo. Mmm. There's an interesting flavor in there that I really like. It almost tastes like a peach. It's the white cranberry and this vermouth, it's an interesting vermouth I hadn't heard of. And it's lemon, not lime. I like it.
Phil:
Oh, you see the cherry on the bottom, nice, I wondered. It's really good.
Erin:
Salad course is here. Phil got the arugula salad and I got the romaine salad. It's like a Caesar, it's got capers and parmesan, croutons, the whole bit. That's extremely tasty.
Phil:
It's surprising because it has so much citrus to it. Of course, because it's Giada, it's going to have lemon juice, but it was very unexpected. You kind of expected to just have some sort of a little light oil dressing, but this is really unique.
Colt:
Was that pork?
Phil:
Pancetta, yes.
Colt:
That was good.
Phil:
You like it?
Colt:
The lime really gives that flavor.
Phil:
The lemon?
Colt:
Yeah. That's really good.
Phil:
Want more?
Colt:
Yeah, that's really good. Thank you.
Erin:
This is Giada's signature pasta. It is a lemon spaghetti and a little shrimp and basil and those capers. You know I like those capers. I'm so excited to try. Mmm. The lemon is really subtle and I was a little worried about it being too lemony, but that is perfect. Just the right touch.
Phil:
I got the bucatini in a tomato sauce. So bucatini is basically a very fat spaghetti, except that it's hollow in the middle. So it's like cooked perfectly as you would expect. Ooh, and the tomato sauce is actually very spicy though. Not very spicy, but it's spicy, though. You don't get that at first. It kind of sneaks up on you. You're going to love it, baby.
Erin:
Okay. That looks good. So it has a faba bean puree on the bottom, by the way, this is salmon. And there is a ricotta pasta with the two, if I haven't had enough pasta already, but I'm going to have some more, apparently. It's really good. This salmon is insanely crispy on the outside and it's cooked so perfect and tenderly on the inside. And that pasta is super yummy.
Phil:
Who would've ever thought that I would go to Giada and get steak? Instead of going to a steakhouse to get steak. But you know what? It's hard for me to ever turn down a good Filet Mignon and I bet this is going to be a good Filet Mignon. Mmm. Look at that, cooked to perfection. And it has this little charred avocado and butter, I think, thing on top. Thank you, Giada. Well done, Giada, you really brought it tonight. So we're going to head back, the only thing left to do is to fill out those sheets and then tally the votes and see who comes out on top. All right, you guys ready?
Erin:
Yes.
The judging and our review of Bobby Flay’s Amalfi vs. Giada in Las Vegas
Phil:
Let the judging begin.
Erin:
Now just a reminder, I put my money on Bobby and-
Phil:
Technically I put mine on Giada. Yeah, but we don't actually care, because we both think they're both phenomenal chefs with phenomenal restaurants. This is a win-win for us because we're big fans.
Erin:
Right, we got two great meals out of it.
Phil:
Really enjoying babababa... Okay, we have created some judging sheets here. So all of us are going to rate each one of these restaurants based on certain criteria. There's a slight difference between what the kids are going to rate and what we're going to rate, because we have cocktails and wine on ours. They got to have desserts. So they're going to judge desserts instead of cocktails and wines.
Erin:
Yeah.
Colt:
I just wonder why.
Phil:
So here's what we have. We're going to rate on a scale of one to three, each restaurant across these criteria, flavor of food, presentation of food, originality of food, cocktails and wine for the adults, desserts for the kids, service and atmosphere. You guys ready?
Colt:
Ready.
Erin:
Yep.
Phil:
I'm going to pass these out, babe, Colt, Brooklyn. Okay, everybody ready? Hand them back here. Mommy's going to add them up and then we're going to read the results.
Erin:
The results are in! Okay.
Colt:
Who won?
Erin:
I'm going to tell you. Okay, for flavor, a tie and I get it.
Phil:
Yeah.
Erin:
Flavor was there, both of them. Presentation Giada won by two points, I think it is how she did the pasta all pretty in that little dome. Okay. Originality. This is a tie I know who won for me, but yeah, originality is a tie. Okay. Dessert, Bobby won dessert.
Phil:
I'm surprised to hear that guys, but hey, whatever. Except-
Colt:
How many points-
Phil:
That pistachio Sunday was the best dessert I've had in years.
Erin:
Okay. Now for the adult category, the cocktails Giada takes that by two points.
Phil:
And to be fair, I had a Bellini at Bobby's and that was it, otherwise it was wine, and then Giada's we really were blown away by that Cosmo Bianca.
Erin:
And my espresso martini. Bobby won for service, and not that Giada's service was bad there, but-
Phil:
Flawless. It was flawless at both places.
Erin:
Yes. But I would say that service at Almalfi was phenomenal. So I'm... Obviously the kids saw that too.
Phil:
We had Ray, the manager over talking to us a lot.
Erin:
Yeah.
Phil:
There was above and beyond attention, but yeah, flawless at both places.
Erin:
Atmosphere. I understand this. Giada takes that one by a point. The view from Giada is stunning.
Brooklyn:
That's exactly, exactly why I choose it.
Phil:
Is it?
Erin:
Okay for the final, the winner, Bobby Flay got 62 points. Giana got 63 points!
Brooklyn:
Yes!
Colt:
Yes!
Brooklyn:
Do the happy dance!
Erin:
Well, I guess I am taking these guys to Can in what, like a month?
Phil:
We're going to go see the Yacht show in France! You know what? I'll take you to Tuscany too.
Erin:
Oh, do the happy dance! I'll do the-
Phil:
So we highly recommend both of these restaurants, had a fantastic time. Both were flawless, food, presentation, service, atmosphere, everything was amazing. So if you're in Vegas, you've got to try both of them.
Erin:
So make sure to subscribe so that you can see us in France and Italy next month, and also make sure to stay tuned, because right after this, Phil and I are doing our own little throw down in our own kitchen.
Phil:
Which is not flawless. See you in the next episode.
Our home-grown throwdown
Erin:
It's time to show down with throw down.
Phil:
Okay. Erin is up first, tell them what you're making babe.
Erin:
I'm doing Bobby Flay's chicken parmesan recipe.
Phil:
Do you think the kids are going to like it?
Erin:
I think the kids are going to love it. It's chicken, it's Parmesan and it's going to be spectacular because it's Bobby's recipe. So this is Bobby versus Giada home-style. Oh! Italian seasoning!
Phil:
Told you!
Erin:
Yes!
Phil:
Colt?
Colt:
Horribley, good.
Phil:
Good one. Brooklyn?
Brooklyn:
Eh. It's good.
Erin:
Wasn't really the hit I was looking for. Cooking is hard and it's hard to cook for kids. They are the toughest critics, I still think I might have a shot, because it's chicken parmesan.
Phil:
Maybe I'm just like really hungry, but baby, I think it is delicious.
Erin:
Aww.
Phil:
I'm sorry. It's so silly. Bobby, I think it's delicious.
Erin:
Aw. Well I can always count on you to appreciate me.
Phil:
Giada, I hope I can do you justice. So we're going to make a baked French toast, blueberry French toast for the kids. Here's my little secret. Know your audience. Okay? I come from the marketing advertising world. This is the most important thing. Know your audience. So my audience, little kids who I know love having breakfast for dinner, so I'm going to make breakfast for dinner.
Erin:
So in other words, he's practically cheating, because he's giving them breakfast for dinner and I gave them dinner for dinner.
Phil:
Bun is in the oven, the kids are going to love it. All right guys, it's time to rate and review. So QR code, this is for the survey.
Colt:
Ready!
Erin:
Okay. I'm a little nervous. Okay? I don't know how this looks for me. I mean, Phil really gave the kids dessert for dinner. So he might have an advantage on me on that, but I know I worked hard. I know the flavors were there, so I might have a chance. We're just going to have to see what the judges have to say.
Phil:
I want to say it's a flip and tie.
Erin:
No!
Colt:
Tiebreaker!
Erin:
So I thought the competition would be toast. We're going to have to battle another day to see who the winner is.
Phil:
Hey, I'm just glad I didn't get pounded by the competition. Two years ago, we decided it was time for my ad agency to abandon the in-person five day work week. So we 86'ed our office and work hours, allowing our own family a five to start traveling almost constantly.
Erin:
We now work, school and explore in a new place every week. From our own mountain and beach homes to exotic villas, resorts and yachts around the world. As we experience and support diverse cultures, we hope to inspire more families to design a life of freedom and adventure.
Phil:
Because there's a new American dream. It's one that's void of templated expectations, templated career paths, templated education, templated families, templated homes, and templated lives. Freedom's no longer American tagline. It's just the new global way of life.
Erin:
Every day that you spend doing something that doesn't fulfill you to your core, you're living your life on pause. You're deferring genuine family time with no guarantee that there will be a tomorrow or a someday. Some people follow that mentality their entire lives. We've chosen to never live that way again.
Phil:
We appreciate you following our journey. The more our channel grows, the more time we can spend traveling to more locations, contributing to these cultures, highlighting local businesses and sharing inspiring stories from these communities.
Erin:
So please consider liking, commenting and subscribing so that you can stick with us for the long haul.
At-Home Throwdown:
Want to try Bobby's Chicken Parm recipe that Erin made?
Want to try Giada's Baked French Toast recipe that Phil made?
Learn more about how we stay in multi-million dollar homes around the world for a low, flat monthly subscription and no nightly rates, taxes, or hidden fees—with Inspirato Pass.