I Ate at Every Buffet on the Las Vegas Strip in One Week

A gastronomical tour of the Las Vegas Strip. | Lyssa Park The soul of Las Vegas can be uncovered one buffet station at a time It was while sitting at the Tavern inside the Fontainebleau, sharing a plate of those nachos, when I admitted to a colleague that I had not dined in any of the Las Vegas Strip’s buffets since the Aladdin closed in 1997. As a food writer in and longtime resident of Las Vegas, it’s a glaring omission. My defense, if one is needed, is simple: Vegas’s consummate maximalism, along with its constantly growing food scene, make it nearly impossible to try everything once. The city teems with spectacle — restaurants that dutifully light steaks on fire or ferry them to tables in a Pulp Fiction-style briefcase. Award-winning chefs distill decades of hard-won technique into plates designed to mesmerize: sweet potato medallions laden with creme fraiche and caviar, homemade babka swirled with jammy ube halaya. If I want pristine seafood or prime rib, I can go to a restaurant that does that as a superlative. Still, my dining companion seemed floored that I had not in recent years experienced Vegas’s distinct buffet culture, introduced initially as a loss leader in casinos — that is, an easy comp to get prospective game players in the building and ply them into parting with their dollars on the casino floor. Leading up to 2020, the Las Vegas Valley had more than 70 casino buffets. Only 13 in the city survived the pandemic. Even prior to 2020, buffets had transformed. In Vegas, this style of dining has become markedly expensive — some off-Strip casinos command $75 per head for buffet entry on weeknights. Buffets, over time, evolved from a convenience to an attraction: Before the pandemic began, Caesars Entertainment positioned its buffets as an experience on par with hopping parks at Disneyland, selling a $60 pass that granted entry to five buffets for 24 hours. The Sterling Brunch at Bally’s was a black-tie $100-plus destination. Casinos, of course, have also changed: Gone are the days of arbitrary theming and larger-than-life mascots. Kitsch is almost dead. The Aladdin, where I first buffeted as a child, became the glossy Planet Hollywood resort. Treasure Island has scrapped its pirate show — and swapped out its cool-as-hell pirate skull marquee for a soulless neon “TI.” The Hard Rock Hotel became the Virgin. The Mirage and its volcano are being demolished — though the Hard Rock plans to erect a 700-foot-tall guitar-shaped tower where the volcano stands (maybe spectacle isn’t completely gone from town). Lyssa Park The art of dunking a crab leg in clarified butter. “I should just put aside a week and hit all the buffets,” I said, finally — in part to appease and in part because I felt it was time. Thus, Eater Vegas’s buffet bonanza week was born: Accompanied by my colleague, some friends, or the ancient Egyptian god Anubis (explanation to come), I decided to eat only in Las Vegas buffets for eight consecutive days. What started as an efficient means of communing with Las Vegas’s greatest commodity — Excess be her name — would lead me on a journey taken by thousands of travelers each day: one that snakes past pre-scored crab legs hoisted upon ice, woks of dubiously labeled “Asian food” idling beneath the day-glo light of heat lamps, and the immaculately portioned Gastronorm containers that comprise the endless salad bar. Plate by heaping plate, my buffet of buffets led me into the belly of Las Vegas canon and helped me understand, more completely, how a nearly 80-year-old tradition evolved from a low-priced novelty to an experience largely representative of the city itself. Day One Bacchanal at Caesars Palace and the Buffet at Wynn are both considered the pinnacle of Las Vegas’s buffet scene, commanding the highest prices (upward of $100 for dinner) and serving the most elaborate spreads. On a Tuesday evening, I began my buffet odyssey at the largest buffet in town as one of about 1,400 people that day who dined at Bacchanal. The sprawling buffet has nine open kitchens, can seat some 600 people at a time, and offers a whopping 250 dishes. Chief among them is the seafood. The jewel of the buffet, a glass-encased serving counter positioned at the entrance, looms in front of the queue of hungry ticket-holders waiting for a table. The aptly named Bacchanal is a far cry from its predecessor, Chuck Wagon at the El Rancho, which is often credited for opening the first all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet back in 1946. It was $1 to sit, a deal offered to road-weary travelers in the early morning hours. My strategy at Bacchanal, which opened in 2012, was to eat my money’s worth — every cent of the $184.22 (inclusive of tax and tip) I spent for myself and my dining companion. To help in this mission, I asked Bacchanal’s executive chef Julio Castillo how to make the buffet lose money on us. Castillo gamely directed me to the seafood and the carvery’s filet mign