After polishing off our tomahawk chops at Jean Georges Steakhouse, we walked across the corridor to American Fish by Michael Mina. With ceiling lights emitting a serene oceanic glow over every table, glass, and chair, the setting could not have been any more perfect for a restaurant celebrating the bounty of America’s waterways.
The best part of the dining room was the huge window peering into the kitchen. Every seat in the house offered a perfect view of meals being made from start to finish. Dinner and a show—how very Las Vegas.
American Fish is one of sixteen restaurants owned by San Francisco-based chef and restauranteur Michael Mina. On our tour of American Fish, Chef Mina demonstrated the restaurant’s four signature cooking methods: salt-baking, wood-grilling, cast iron-griddling, and ocean water-poaching.
“I wanted to pay homage to rustic cooking methods from across the country—lobster boils, clambakes and campfire cookouts—but apply them with modern finesse for a truly refined dining experience,” said Chef Mina in an interview with Vegas magazine.
The first technique that he demonstrated was ocean water-poaching. The filet of halibut was packed tightly with water from the Pacific Ocean, kelp, and a pat of butter prior to being dunked in a sous vide bath that the chef designed.
