Tasting Menus & Michelin 🍽️
7 set-course dinners on the road, 3 of them in a starred kitchen — each one with the menu exactly as it came out of the pass, the stars and awards the room holds, and what was in the glass alongside.
- 1Pappy's Smokehouse — Midtown
- 2The Capital Grille — Clayton, Clayton
- 3Yellowtail — Bellagio, Las Vegas
- 4Le Cirque — Bellagio, Las Vegas
- 5Commis — Oakland — 3859 Piedmont Ave, Temescal
- 6Kusakabe — San Francisco — 584 Washington St, Jackson Square
- 7Kusa Nori — Resorts World, Las Vegas
Pappy's Smokehouse
Midtown
3106 Olive Street, main entrance on Cardinal — dry-rubbed ribs smoked fourteen hours over apple and cherry wood, and they close when the food is gone. Opened 2008 and named for the late Jim 'Pappy' Emerson, uncle and mentor to Mike Emerson, who runs it with John Matthews, Skip Steele, Brian Scoggins and Niki Puto. The smokers sit out on the sidewalk with names painted on them — WAINO 50 for Adam Wainwright, another for Porky La Farge. Adam Richman ate here on Man v. Food in 2009 and the 'Adam Bomb' on the menu is named for him; the framed old menus on the wall are signed by Chris Rock, Hugh Jackman and Steven Jackson.
Bio · Tasting menu · My notes · Photos →
The Capital Grille
Clayton · Clayton
The Generous Pour is The Capital Grille's summer wine event — one house's portfolio poured six glasses deep alongside dinner rather than by the bottle. The 2026 edition, Flight of Majesty, ran the Duckhorn Portfolio: Goldeneye out of Anderson Valley and the North Coast, Duckhorn out of Napa, ending on a one-time Heritage Cabernet blended from Oak Knoll and Howell Mountain fruit. Poured in the Clayton dining room, eight miles west of the Arch, on the first night of the trip.
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Yellowtail
Bellagio · Las Vegas
Akira Back's room on the Bellagio's fountain side — an omakase that runs from tuna pizza and toro caviar through new-style carpaccio to nigiri, poured against a flight of sake.
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Le Cirque
MichelinBellagio · Las Vegas
Sirio Maccioni's jewel box under the Bellagio's silk circus-tent ceiling — open since the resort's first night in October 1998 and, three weeks after we ate here, gone.
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Commis
MichelinOakland — 3859 Piedmont Ave, Temescal
A narrow storefront on Piedmont Ave that has quietly held a Michelin star longer than almost anywhere else in the Bay Area — Syhabout opened it in 2009 and it starred that same year, well before the East Bay had any other fine-dining pull. Food & Wine named him a Best New Chef the year after. Syhabout was born in Thailand and raised in an Isan-Lao Chinese household in the East Bay, and Commis' tasting menu leans on that background — French technique built around Thai and Chinese flavors rather than a straight New American register. The old-fashioned at the bar comes with a branded 'commis' ice cube, and James himself was working the pass tonight.
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Kusakabe
MichelinSan Francisco — 584 Washington St, Jackson Square
Chef Kusakabe's sushi carries his Kyoto training, not the heavier Edomae style of most SF sushi counters — the nigiri is built around a kaiseki sense of balance and seasonality, and the meal runs as a full multi-course tasting rather than a straight nigiri procession. He opened his namesake counter in Jackson Square in May 2014 and it starred the same year.
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Kusa Nori
Resorts World · Las Vegas
The Japanese room at Resorts World, up at the north end of the Strip past the STRAT — a sushi bar beside the black octopus wall, robatayaki off the coals, and a long sake list. The omakase runs as a seasonal chef's menu: Hokkaido scallop with uni butter, BlackHawk wagyu, winter truffle when it's in.
Bio · Tasting menu · My notes · Photos →