Italian restaurants are a fixture along the Strip, with most resorts showcasing their own renditions. Until recently at The Mirage, you would visit Onda, a small space tucked away toward the back of the casino floor, but it has undergone a metamorphosis into Portofino. And while the room remains relatively unchanged, new executive chef Michael LaPlaca has revamped the menu into something very, very different where traditional Italian flavors blend with modern flair.
The deviation begins with the Italian restaurant staple—the meatball. It blends Italian sausage and Kobe beef into juicy spheres bathed in a crisp marinara sauce, topped with deep-fried, goat cheese-filled squash blossoms. Equally interesting are the “crab cake” arancini, where the standard deep-fried rice-and-cheese balls are stuffed with lump crab and topped with a pickled rémoulade salad. And roasted bone marrow, accompanied by grilled sardines, comes imbued with a hint of smokiness from time spent over hickory wood.
Salads tend to trend more toward the traditional. The caprese layers heirloom tomato slices, mozzarella and basil, with the silky cheese coming from water buffalo raised near the base of Mount
Vesuvius. In the Caesar salad, with four-month aged Parmesan and garlic croutons, the dressing itself offers hints of anchovy without being overpowering; it’s a rendition showcasing a simple classic, simply done well.
Of course, in any Italian restaurant, pasta is paramount and LaPlaca’s approach may be unprecedented. While numerous Strip restaurants deliver house-made pastas, few are making theirs literally to order. This means that you can get fresh-made spaghetti with rich pork belly and crisp sweet peas.
Chicken "rollatini" Parmesan
Likewise, the burrata-stuffed agnolotti are pain-stakingly wrapped moments before being served with lobster and doused with slightly sweet roasted corn butter. And seared scallop fettuccine is a study in decadence with day boat scallops served swimming in uni butter and topped with caviar; the trio is the essence of the ocean in a single serving.
LaPlaca has some tricks up his leave with his ripatelli; you’ve most likely never had it before because he invented it while attempting to replicate “torn” pasta. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. The same is true of the chicken “rollatini” Parmesan, which transforms chicken legs and thighs into a sausage subsequently wrapped in breast—you’ll most likely never experience another chicken parmigiana like it.
On the lighter side, snapper “in cartoccio” is sublime. While the original incarnation is served in paper, Portofino’s is prepared in a plastic bag where it is baked in its own juices along with a healthy serving of Santa Margherita pinot grigio, olives and artichokes. Sliced open tableside with a welcoming aroma wafting from within, the flaky fish literally falls apart on the plate.
LaPlaca is taking Portofino to new heights with his nontraditional takes on traditional fare. We can all be glad that he is.
The Mirage, 5-10 p.m. Thurs.-Mon. 702.791.7223
