If you spend a lot of time watching food and travel videos from Japan, you’ve probably seen a sando. For the uninitiated, the term refers to a Japanese sandwich that pairs soft, pillowy milk bread with fillings that range from egg salad and crispy cutlets to premium beef. Fortunately, they are no longer exclusive to the Land of the Rising Sun.
In Las Vegas, Gyu+ is the place to find both traditional and creative adaptations of these casual bites. The concept’s two locations, one in Chinatown and one in the Southwest Valley near Las Vegas’ sole Ikea, are filled with egg, chicken cutlet, shrimp and two grades of beef tenderloin. And the sandwiches are only the beginning of the story. The company behind Gyu+, Elevate Hospitality Group, also operates a pair of Japanese bakeries and a high-end speakeasy-style dining room.
Moignet, located a few doors down from Gyu+’s Chinatown location, is a retail-only bakery named after its signature Mochi Beignets, which recently went viral with something it calls “Mango Mochi.” Milk Bread, a Filipino/Japanese bakery on Jones Boulevard, produces bread and pastries for the other operations, but has also created unique pastries of its own, which it sells directly to the public. And hidden behind the original Chinatown sandwich shop is Gyu+ Social, an intimate dining room where the team explores fine dining, hosts private events and gives chefs room to experiment.
Born In The Clouds
Elevate Hospitality Group is led by longtime Las Vegas restaurateurs Luis De Santos and Freddy Paloma. Their path to this small culinary ecosystem began during the pandemic, after the shutdowns forced De Santos to permanently close the short-lived Mordeo Boutique Wine Bar.
Rather than immediately committing to another full-scale restaurant, De Santos and Paloma launched Gyu+ from a cloud kitchen. The format allowed them to develop a streamlined concept built around Japanese-inspired sandwiches that could travel well.
“It was exploration,” De Santos said of that time period. “One or two people could actually run this as long as you had the passion and the tenacity to go through with the idea.”
That exploration allowed them to move beyond traditional egg and chicken katsu sandos and develop less conventional creations. Executive Chef Daniel “Izzy” Cabrera created a shrimp version made with hand-chopped shrimp, shishito shio mayonnaise and pickled onions. And high-rollers can now upgrade the standard $24 steak sando to a $99 version that includes eight ounces of Japanese A5 wagyu, truffle potato chips and dessert.
An Incubator for Future Ideas
Gyu+ has since expanded with a second location in the southwest valley. But Gyu+ Social may offer the clearest look at where the restaurant group wants to go next.
The 40-seat room was designed to feel like a hidden Tokyo lounge, with a more polished atmosphere and more ambitious goals than the sandwich counter out front.
“We use this as an incubator for future chefs, future concepts,” Paloma recently told the Food and Loathing podcast. “We bring them in. They do a pop-up. They do collaborations, and this is basically how we show off their skills.”
After a summer break, Gyu+ Social is scheduled to resume regular Thursday-through-Saturday evening service on Oct. 1. The team hopes to host two chef pop-ups each month, including the long-delayed collaboration with Raku Chef Mitsuo Endo, originally planned for earlier this year.
For Cabrera, the room provides a creative outlet beyond the sandwiches that first put Gyu+ on the map, and offers him the freedom to create more elevated dishes designed to pair with wine and sake.
“I don’t want people to call us an izakaya or a sushi place,” the chef explained. “We want to do something more elevated.”
From a cloud kitchen sandwich operation to an integrated operation that creates some of Las Vegas’ most unusual sandwiches, pastries and pop-ups, what began as a cautious pandemic-era experiment has grown into one of Las Vegas’ more exciting young hospitality companies. What comes next is anyone’s guess. But it’s almost certain to be delicious.
Hear more from De Santos, Paloma and Cabrera on the July 10 episode of the Food and Loathing podcast, which was recorded on location at Gyu+ in Chinatown.
