Restaurant News
Located at 10 Via Briaza, at the top of the main walking street of the Miralago Village, the Black Pepper Grill adds an elegant new restaurant to the Lake Las Vegas complex. The restaurant took over the building formerly occupied by Como. Stylishly appointed, with high ceilings and soft lighting, the Black Pepper Grill has a classy but comfortable ambience that will appeal to those out for that big night out on the town or for those just seeking a nice informal meal.
Guests have the option of dining in the formal dining room or alfresco on the patio. The patio offers views of the lake and good opportunities for people watching. The Black Pepper Grill also features an upstairs dining area if things get busy, and a banquet room for private parties.
I first dined at Sedona some two years ago and wrote the original review for Vegas Wine News shortly thereafter. While there have been some minor changes in the menu, my first impressions have remained the same. Sedona still qualifies as the proverbial diamond in the rough. Set in its own ultra-modern building at 9580 West Flamingo (right next to where Flamingo Boulevard crosses Interstate 215), Sedona provides diners with an opportunity to dine in the style of an upscale Las Vegas Strip establishment without the often inflated prices of those venues.
The exterior appears as a striking high mix of steel, wood and glass. The restaurant continues the high-tech effect with an interior featuring a large, high ceiling dining area fitted with trendy furniture, all bathed in a soft red light. It all results in conveying a comfortably warming ambience for diners. A large centrally located U-shaped bar with granite counters can accommodate about two-dozen people. The dining area is set back far enough from the bar so that diners can carry on intimate conversation without distraction.
The restaurant’s patio offers an alternative dining environment. Stylishly set around a small fountain and surrounded by soaring bamboo plants, the tables provide an outdoor retreat for alfresco meals under the stars. Heater lamps allow for comfort when the weather turns cool.
Sedona’s menu offers a wide selection of dining possibilities. Entrees include sandwiches, three different pastas, chicken dishes, four seafood meals, a pork chop, a strip sirloin steak, ribeye, and a filet mignon. The beef dishes are all certified Angus beef and tender as butter. I order my beef medium rare, and in three diners all meals have come out perfectly. The entrees range from $11.00 for the sandwiches to $38.00 for the filet mignon. All come with a small portion of interesting side dishes paired with the entrée for a completely satisfying dining experience. Translation: you really don’t need to order anything a la carte to have a complete meal. Sedona also offers a prix fixe dinner for $24.00 that includes a choice of six starter items, seven entrees and three desserts.
However, if you feel like something extra, executive chef Jason Hrach stays prepared. He has come up with an eclectic assortment of appetizers, soups, salads and grilled flatbread should the diner choose to supplement the main course. For example, the menu includes BBQ ribs, ahi tuna poke, beef carpaccio, crab fritters and some creative flatbread dishes. The grilled flatbread (actually a thin crust pizza) and a salad provide enough for a full meal for most appetites. All appetizers, soups, salads and flatbreads cost between $8.00-$18.00.
For the wine lover, Sedona has a nice wine list available to complement the food menu. They arrange the wine list in a unique manner, with both whites and red wines categorized from light to full bodied. The wine list about twenty different white wines, with bottles ranging in price from $30.00-$120.00. The listed red wines include more than two dozen and cost between $30.00-$140.00 per bottle. The wine list also has several options for enjoying champagne. Sedona makes a large number of these wines available by the glass.
Visit the Black Pepper Grill in Lake Las Vegas or a previous favorite, Sedona...
The menu has a myriad of choices for diners, including ten different appetizers, six salads, a good assortment of sushi, sandwiches and burgers, four pasta dishes and 18 entrees. Some of the more interesting entrees include a salmon filet encased in parchment, crusted rack of lamb with smoked paprika, a balsamic ribeye steak and a pork chop with truffle sauce. Most of the entrees run between $20.00 to $46.00. Most of the pasta dishes cost between $16.00 to $28.00 for pasta with lobster.
Black Pepper Grill’s main dining room...
Steak is the specialty of the house here, and the Black Pepper Grill offers nine different options for beef lovers, including bone-in ribeye, filet and petit filet mignon, a 32 ounce porterhouse, a New York strip steak and a Kobe Wagyu beef filet Mignon. Steaks run from $26.00 to $58.00 for the Kobe filet. The restaurant also specializes in lobster, and accordingly has a surf and turf meal along with Maine, California Spiny and Australian lobsters fresh from their in-house aquarium. Lobster prices vary with the season and the law of supply and demand.
On the night I recently dined there, I sampled the bone-in ribeye, balsamic infused ribeye and spiny lobster, all cooked to perfection. The staff acted with warm efficiency throughout the meal.
Being of Italian descent, the owners recognize the importance of enjoying wine with a meal, and have fashioned a nice, if not overwhelming, selection for guests. That list includes 22 bottles of white wines and about 50 red wines. Some of the more popular whites include Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, Far Niente Chardonnay, Patz & Hall Chardonnay and Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc. There are also a good selection of other varietal whites, such as Viognier and Riesling. Whites range in price from $26.00-$160.00, with many bottle priced below $50.00. Some of the more notable red wines include several wines from Behrens & Hitchcock, Sassicaia and Tignanello Super-Tuscans, Opus One, Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte Bordeaux and some Vincent Girardin Burgundys. Red wines run between $30.00-$460.00 per bottle, with many priced in the $40.00-$80.00 range. Predictably, most bottles come from the new world or Italy. The list also includes four champagnes and sparkling wines.
They also offer about 20 wines by the glass, priced between $6.00 and $19.00. You can even order a glass of Italian Brunello. As an accommodation to wine lovers, Black Pepper Grill has a very generous policy towards those with carry-in bottles, charging only a $10.00 corkage fee.
Sedona’s outdoor patio area...
Another special features Tuesday wine nights, when patrons may order any of the listed wines at one-half their normal price. This represents a tremendous bargain, in that the wine list is not overly priced to begin with. Sedona also stages ladies’ night on Thursdays, with some nice giveaways and featured grey goose cocktails.
The Sedona restaurant offers diners stylish ambience, excellent food, a respectable wine list, and friendly, attentive service, all at reasonable prices. Sedona is certainly worth seeking out if one wants fine quality dining away from the Strip. Contact the restaurant at (702)320-4700 for reservations or more information.
In this edition we visit a newcomer to the Las Vegas scene, the Black Pepper Grill in Lake Las Vegas, and a previous favorite still serving great food at reasonable prices, Sedona...
The ambience, food and wine policy all make for good reasons to drive out to Las Lake Vegas some evening and give the Black Pepper Grill a try. For reservations or more information call the restaurant at (702)567-9950 or go to their website at www.blackpepperlakelv.com . Don’t confuse this restaurant with the Black Pepper Grill located on Eastern Avenue in Henderson. The latter have ceased doing business and the restaurants had no affiliation with one another.
The long bar at Black Pepper Grill...
The Sedona restaurant in Summerlin...
Some of the more notable wines on the list include Rombauer and Cakebread Chardonnays, Freemark Abbey and Ladera Cabernet Sauvignon. The menu concentrates heavily on American wines, but also has a few wines from Australia, Italy and France. As a nice concessions to wine lovers, the restaurant allows carry-in bottles with a corkage fee of $20.00 per bottle. The restaurant will waive the fee on all bottles purchased at the nearly Wine Styles retail store.
Sedona offers some truly astounding specials on a regular basis. Most notable is their steak and lobster special for $19.00. It consists of an eight ounce sirloin steak and a small lobster tail, both at half price of the regular entrée. I have taken advantage of this offer on several occasions, and believe it ranks as the best quality/price bargain in the Las Vegas area. One of the better lobster tails I have ever tasted.