Ten years is a long time for a Las Vegas restaurant, particularly on the Strip, where even successful concepts are routinely reimagined or replaced.
So when Beauty & Essex invited us in to celebrate its 10th anniversary at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, we asked Chef Chris Santos what has allowed the restaurant to remain successful in an increasingly competitive dining landscape.
His answer had surprisingly little to do with food.
“I always list delicious food second because I feel like the way you make people feel, as cliché as it might sound, they’re going to remember more than what they ate,” Santos told the Food and Loathing podcast.
That doesn’t mean food is an afterthought. It’s one of two things Santos says have remained central to his job since he landed his first executive chef position at the age of 23, more than three decades ago.
“All I had to do was make good food, and then get the word out,” the chef recalls of those early days. “There were no phones. There was no social media. So that was my one and only goal: make good food, get the word out.”
Today, considerably more tools are available for that second part. But Santos says the first part hasn’t changed.
And these days, he believes making good food begins with creating a kitchen where people actually want to work.
“Happy cooks make better food,” he says.
Santos remembers working in kitchens where getting everyone behind a common goal could be a daily struggle. At Beauty & Essex, he says the atmosphere is different.
“Everyone comes to work here. They want to be here. They’re proud of what we’re doing here,” he says. “It’s such a great collaborative atmosphere back in that kitchen.”
That philosophy was tested this year when Beauty & Essex undertook what Santos calls its most ambitious menu change since opening, adding 19 savory dishes and six desserts.
Rather than dictating those dishes from the top down, Santos says ideas are encouraged from throughout the kitchen.
“If you’re a cook in my kitchen trying to work your way up, if you’re a dishwasher that wants to be a prep cook, or if you’re a sous chef, or if you’re a chef, I want you to feel like you have some role in what is on the menu in some way.”
Of course, not every suggestion makes the cut.
“Sometimes they’re not great, and you have to give them tough love and say, ‘Nice try,’” Santos says.
But everyone is encouraged to contribute, while the restaurant’s executive chef and sous chefs work closely with the rest of the cooks.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Santos says.
It’s also a significant departure from the stereotypical restaurant kitchen ruled by an intimidating chef — a culture Santos suggests is becoming a thing of the past.
“It’s not this, like, crazy intense kitchen,” he says. “It’s intense work, but everyone enjoys being here, and I think that translates to what the guests get.”
Santos admits he can’t entirely explain how Beauty & Essex developed that culture.
“I couldn’t necessarily teach it in a class,” he says. “But whatever it is, I think we do it.”
Ten years into the restaurant’s Las Vegas run, that may be as good an explanation for its longevity as any.
