Sin City is home to a lot of restaurants and bars, but there are tons of hidden gems that the majority of Las Vegans aren't unearthing. To help guide us to these potential discoveries, we've enlisted some of our city's food players to share their recommendations for Dining Confidential. This week, we asked chefs to talk about their favorite pizza joints for Pizza Week. Know a chef who wants to share some top dining spots? The tipline is open.
Billy Richardson's Block16 Hospitality now spans across Las Vegas with Holstein's at the Cosmopolitan, two Pink's Hot Dogs, The Barrymore at the Royal Resort and three new entries — Haute Doggery and Flour & Barley at The Linq and The Blind Pig at the Panorama Towers. The restaurant impresario got his start in the hospitality industry when he opened RA, perhaps the biggest nightclub in the late '90s, at the Luxor. Here, he shares his favorite places to nosh on pizza when he's not growing his restaurant empire.
Where do you like to go for pizza when you're not working?
I love Settebello in Henderson. It's not only close to my house, but they source a majority of their ingredients directly from Italy and it shows. My personal favorite here is their namesake Settebello pizza with pancetta, wood oven sausage, roasted mushrooms, toasted pine nuts, mozzarella and basil. My kids also love their traditional Marghertia pizza.
I also enjoy Grimaldi's because it has multiple locations throughout Vegas, and great New York "style" white pizza with garlic.
Finally, one of my go-to pizza spots is Secret Pizza in the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. It's the perfect place to grab a quick slice or two after a late-night meeting at Holstein's (one of our Block16 Hospitality venues). Secret Pizza also has a great white pizza with sausage.
What pizza are most memorable?
I think pizza at Settebello is often the most memorable for me, not because it's "the best" but because I typically end up splitting a pizza with my kids and family. Fortunately, I love any pizza with fresh sausage and mushrooms, and the kids really like to stick to the basics, so I typically get at least half a pizza to myself.
Why do you enjoy going there?
I really enjoy these restaurants because they're all convenient (to my home, or to my work) and they all consistently produce a great pie with fresh ingredients and delicious topping combinations. Whether its that quick slice at Secret Pizza in the Cosmopolitan, a convenient pizza dinner with the family at Settebello or I have a hankering for white pizza and need to get my fix at Grimaldi's, I can always count on these three tried and true pizza spots (at least until our very own Flour & Barley Brick Oven Pizza opens at The Linq, then I might have a new favorite pizza spot!).
· All Coverage of Block16 Hospitality [~ELV~]
· All Dining Confidentials [~ELV~]
· All Pizza Week 2014 Coverage [~ELV~]
Billy Richardson [Photo: Courtesy]
