Photo by: Anthony Mair/Amair Photo LLC
When you enter Orla at Mandalay Bay, it looks like you are stepping into a Greek restaurant, with its shaded patio studded with mosaics and trees shading diners. You’ll find plenty of Greek-style dishes here, but you’ll notice many Middle Eastern touches as well.
And that’s to be expected, because, as chef and owner Michael Mina explains, there is a lot of crossover between Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food. And he should know. The Egyptian-born chef grew up in Washington state, but all those flavors were present daily, with his mother’s cooking imbuing his house with magnificent flavors and fragrances. “Much of the food I ate was Greek, or was crossover, somewhere between Greek and Egyptian,” he says. “The food is very, very bold. It’s high acid, high sweet, high spice, high fat—Middle Eastern food has a ton of flavor in it, right? With all those spices and everything else. So that’s really what trained my palate growing up.”
That experience made Orla a very special project for Mina, allowing the classically trained, Culinary Institute of America graduate who has built an empire of restaurants with many different styles of food, to bring some of that exquisite flavor to his guests.
In Orla, you’ll find a preponderance of seafood and those aforementioned flavors, with appetizers like marinated big eye tuna, dusted with urfa (a Turkish chili) and served with falafel, hamachi crudo with chili crunch, charcoal-grilled octopus, prawns wrapped in kataifi (made with shredded phyllo dough) and whipped chickpea hummus. Pan-fried saganaki is something incredible, here with roasted wild mushrooms, honey and Greek brandy.
Photo by: Anthony Mair/Amair Photo LLC
You may want a cocktail or wine along with those mezze dishes, like the Rio Spritz, made with Aperol, elderflower, passion fruit prosecco and Fever-Tree soda, given a bit of drama as it’s decanted from a porron. The wine list draws from all over the world, stretching from California to Italy and all points between and beyond.
Coming in strong on the entrées is the kebab platter for two, with filet mignon, kofta and chicken dolmas, plus tangerine labneh and smoked eggplant dip with pita. The spice-rubbed New York striploin comes with matbucha, a North African tomato condiment with plenty of garlic and chili peppers. Tomato ginger-glazed salmon, oven-roasted red snapper and chargrilled whole branzino join black harissa-grilled lamb chops with an aromatic fava bessara. You’ll also find a center-cut 8-ounce filet and roasted lemon chicken.
“This is not only the style of food that I love to eat, but also I love to cook … (take) those simple grilled fish, now you add great spices to it from the Middle East, and all of a sudden you have some really magical food.”
You’ll find desserts, too, like the Orla rice pudding, Egyptian mango tart and lemon olive oil semolina cake, which might be best paired with a good Turkish coffee. It might perk you up even more than the flavors you’ve just experienced.
Mandalay Bay, mandalaybay.mgmresorts.com
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