When chef Lorena Garcia opened her Las Vegas restaurant, Chica, in 2017, she was the first Latina chef with her own restaurant on the Strip. That venture paid off, as since then she and her partner, restaurant group 50 Eggs, have opened another location in Miami. The Las Vegas location is loved both for its brunch menu and for dinner. Just recently, the Las Vegas restaurant introduced a revamped dinner menu, with new dishes joining classic favorites.
To start your meal, try one of the new cocktails, such as the Chica-rita, made with Espolón tequila, lime, grilled pineapple, sage and Elemakule Tiki bitters or the Pisco spritz, a colorful glass of Barsol pisco, chicha morada juice and prosecco.
Then, you may want to order shareable items such as guacamole or the new wild mushroom tostada. Each light tostada is just a bite or two, with roasted mushrooms, epazote, shaved radish and a whipped queso fresco. Go ahead and sneak the last one; it’s understandable. It’ll be hard to choose just one appetizer, so get a few. The classic grilled Peruvian octopus has been a winner since day one, enticing seafood lovers with tender octopus laid over blistered Padrón peppers (they are a lot like shishito peppers) and crispy quinoa.
Some of the newer items include carne asada tacos, with adobo-marinated steak, salsa verde and cilantro. Forget sneaking the last one here—you may come to fisticuffs over who gets the most. Potato and cheese empanadas, with avocado crema and a corn poblano pico join another classic, grilled beef empanadas. Sweet plantains, a staple ingredient in many Latin cultures, join the meat and black beans in the stuffed pocket. Another addition, the grilled quesadilla, lets you choose your filling—mushroom, chicken or steak, and smothers that with Oaxaca cheese. Vegetable frito will remind you of tempura, but it’s very light, and the chipotle aioli is a perfect dipping option.
If you’re a vegetarian, you may want to continue that theme to your entrée and check out the half roasted cauliflower, a wonderfully spiced, beautifully charred dish that’s new to the menu. It’s perfectly firm-yet-tender, unlike the dreaded cauliflower steak, which can be mushy outside and raw inside. You can get grilled cauliflower as a side also, but grilled sweet corn elote makes an excellent foil to the main dish.
For meat eaters, the anticucho mixed grill features skewers of beef and chicken, served over hot coals for an impressive fragrance and presentation. They come with several dipping sauces and grilled sweet peppers, too. Sautéed prawns, a chicken enchilada and grilled salmon round out the new offerings. Chica also offers several steak options.
Dessert here can be a simple-yet-elaborate affair, as the churro tower stacks a boatload of cinnamon crusted rings high in the air. It’s served with chocolate sauce that seems to demand to be poured over the whole thing. You’ll be happy to oblige.
The Venetian, 702.805.8472
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