When The Legends Oyster Bar opened its doors in April 2020, it faced one significant problem: It couldn’t serve oysters.
A Tough Start
Chef-owner Jack Jarukasem had spent months preparing to open the small seafood restaurant on South Durango Drive when COVID-19 shut down Las Vegas dining rooms. By the time Legends was finally ready to open on April 10, restaurants were legally limited to takeout and delivery. And the raw seafood that was supposed to be the restaurant’s calling card wasn’t made to travel.
“There was no way to turn back,” Jarukasem told me at the time, when I was interviewing him for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I already had all my money spent. And I need to feed my family and my workers.”
So Legends opened with an abbreviated takeout menu and an empty 40-seat dining room.
More than six years later, Jarukasem is still there, but that dining room is rarely empty anymore. He now offers six or seven varieties of oysters daily, alongside scallops on the half shell and a sprawling seafood menu that moves from New England clam chowder and hot and cold lobster rolls to cioppino, Louisiana boils and jambalaya. The menu also includes less predictable touches, including chowder fries, grilled octopus with Thai chile sauce, and Chilean sea bass with miso beurre blanc.
A Vegas Classic
The signature dish, however, has become synonymous with Las Vegas oyster bars but is rarely seen outside casino environments: the pan roast.
A rich shellfish stew with a creamy tomato-based broth, pan roasts are said to date back to the 19th century and have been offered at New York’s iconic Grand Central Oyster Bar for over a century. But they’ve enjoyed an inordinate amount of success in Las Vegas casinos, to the point that in 2019, the Los Angeles Times declared the dish “the biggest draw at Vegas oyster bars.”
Jarukasem learned to make the dish early in his career at the Rio. At the time, the Flamingo Road resort was known for seafood and buffets. He worked as a saucier, producing sauces for restaurants throughout the property.
“I pretty much adapted myself and changed to what I am right today,” Jarukasem says of those early recipes and techniques during a recent interview on the Food and Loathing podcast.
His understanding of the pan roast comes from recipes and techniques developed for Rio’s long-gone oyster bar, Buzios. In the suburbs, however, he doesn’t have access to the specialized steam kettles traditionally used to create them.
“I did it old-fashioned, which is the gas stove,” he says.
His version combines crab meat, shrimp and lobster meat with a tomato cream sauce and rice. Right from the start, it was one of the restaurant’s most popular dishes.
“Every table would ask for seafood pan roast,” he says of his early customers.
The rest of the menu reflects Jarukasem’s broader seafood background and pulls from several regional traditions. The gumbo combines shrimp, crawfish, chicken, mussels, clams and Andouille sausage with a nutty roux, while the cioppino brings together calamari, fish, clams, mussels, crab, scallops and shrimp. Jarukasem says he still shops for some of the restaurant’s seafood himself, choosing from whatever looks best and is available.
Today, oysters start at $3 each, with varieties changing based on availability. You can get them for $2 apiece from 1 to 4 p.m. every Monday through Thursday, thanks to a happy hour menu that also includes discounted pan roast, jambalaya, and pasta, plus happy-hour-only options like fries and wings.
One Of A Kind
After partnering in a short-lived Henderson version of The Legends Oyster Bar, Jarukasem has decided the Durango Drive original will remain a one-of-a-kind operation.
“This particular concept, this will be the only one,” he says.
While he has ideas for other restaurants, rising food costs and supply issues are keeping him focused on a simple goal: offering the best elements of a casino oyster bar experience in a stand-alone restaurant just a stone’s throw from Desert Breeze Park.
Hear our full interview with Jack Jarukasem on the October 2 episode of the Food and Loathing podcast.
