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| - Wolfgang Puck's CUT is like the high school tease that you finally go out with & discover she's all style, no substance. Smokin' hot in a black mini & heels, but lousy in the backseat & mindnumbingly boring.
Some say you're buying ambiance. WELL, F@#$ AMBIANCE. I don't care if I'm in a garbage dump with a Tijuana donkey show across from me. If the food's incredible, I'll return! I go to a great restaurant to have the chef strap me down, force me to curl my toes & close my eyes, throw my head from side-to-side & moan, "ohholymotherofgod... thatissoooooogood". And I'll pay top dollar for that kinda domination.
But once you cut through the illusion they've created, it's really difficult to ignore how ordinary the food is at CUT relative to great steak restaurants in Vegas.
1) 'MEH' STEAKS
While the type of beef might be important, I strongly believe the quality of a steak dinner originates in large part from the chef's preparation. In Texas, a good broiler can make any cut of beef great & so I use the steaks I've had there as the benchmark for quality & taste in Vegas. Frankly, the way my steaks have been prepared at CUT to date, you could have the Samsonite gorilla throwing them on a grill & they'd come out pretty much the same. Lacking character & distinction.
One of the best steaks I consistently have is at a chain restaurant in Texas. For $28, I get a hot-off-the-grill Ribeye with melted blue cheese & garlic butter over it that sizzles with an aroma that would bring you to your knees - along with a baby lobster tail & Idaho potato that's so good, you take the rest of it home. Meanwhile the scent CUT's purported $160 Kobe beef rib eye doesn't even make me the least bit excited - and it's ala carte.
2) BEEN-THERE-DONE-THAT EXPERIENCE
Y'know, the experience isn't even unique. The concept itself is unremarkable with the exception of their usage of an interior decorator that apparently got his or her training from "Design Within Reach". 'Prime' sells differing types of beef just as CUT does. So does 'Craftsteak'. Frankly, none of this matters because 'Envy' at the Renaissance grills a steak that beats the hell out of anything the others produce.
3) LOUSY VALUE
We're not even going to go there. Suffice it to say that the total bill for me & my wife during the last visit I had at CUT was an absurd $330 for two cuts, a couples sides, an appetizer and some drinks.
CONCLUSION:
After 2 visits, I won't be going back. This experience was clearly not an anomaly & I'm standing pat on this review. This is a fundamentally average steakhouse with hellacious prices & nothing about it compels me to return. While the menu looks heavenly, it's partially because it was written by a sales guy, w/ marketing terms sprinkled generously throughout like "Warm", "Kobe", "Wild", "Roasted" & other superfluous adjectives to describe otherwise typical dishes.
Here's a few other restaurants that definitely know how to prepare a steak better:
- ENVY THE STEAKHOUSE (As long as you don't expect ridiculous artwork or overly dramatic mood lighting, this will be great)
- STRIPSTEAK (Service here is consistently slow here so be forewarned - you're going for the steak, not the service)
3-Stars.
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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CUT: OBSERVATIONS FROM A SALES GUY...
The psychology of restaurant sales & operations is amazing here. I'm really impressed: It's clear that they've hired a restaurant consultant to optimize revenue because CUT is practically designed from the ground up to extract cash out of fools with money.
If you hadn't already picked up on it, CUT's environment - particularly, their menu - is a very sophisticated marketing hook intended to imply that ordering 'good' isn't 'good enough'. Everything about the menu is designed to extract a few extra dollars from you.
Here's the menu: http://www.palazzolasvegas.com/assets/pdf/CUTmenu.pdf
-- Notice that the menu uses a font that 'blends everything in'... including the prices? (This is the exact same menu as the restaurant)
-- Notice that the menu lists beef from most expensive to least in each category?
-- Notice how easy it is to 'gravitate up' to the Wagyu over the other two, thus having you pay $12-16 more.
-- Notice how if you decide on the Ribeye, your eyes immediately gravitate to the Nebraska Corn Fed 16oz at $61 - $5 more than the Illinois.
-- Notice that if you're on an expense account, the "True Japanese Wagyu" is boxed out to highlight the most expensive item on the list?
No one wants to "buy the cheapest item" at a supposed swanky restaurant like that which CUT implies. The menu silently tries to upsell you to 'more expensive beef'. It also tries to make you forget about the prices. $9 for a few blue cheese crumbles? $12 for a SIDE DISH of french fries?
Normally, I have an appreciation for this sort of mindf-ckery even when it's being done to me however, CUT takes this to an insane levels.
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