There is nothing better on the menu at Martha Stewart’s new restaurant in Las Vegas.

I am totally here for the glam of the 1990s at its height.

 

Martha Stewart, the reigning queen of lifestyle, is finally opening her first full-service restaurant, and the menu couldn’t be more ideal. For decades, Stewart has influenced food culture through her publications, television programmes, and now-defunct magazine.

The restaurant inside the Paris Las Vegas opened its doors on August 13 and was given the name Bedford by Martha Stewart. The Bedford, according to Eater Las Vegas, is Stewart’s attempt to replicate the bucolic-glam beauty of her Bedford, New York farmhouse, replete with an exact reproduction of the living room within the restaurant’s dining room, which is also decorated in a suitably neutral colour scheme. The menu, which we have no notes on, is the actual star of the show.

 

A plate of buckwheat crepes with golden Osetra caviar or possibly a half-dozen oysters baked Rockefeller-style with Pernod-infused cream sauce and parsley breadcrumbs can be ordered as an appetiser at the Bedford. A bread basket filled with fresh Parker House rolls and rosemary focaccia studded with tart cherries is also included, along with a modest nicoise salad drizzled with olive oil. As for the meals, there is entire roast chicken that is definitely worth every single one of the ninety dollars it costs in American currency, as well as fish en croute and handkerchief pasta served with toasted pine nuts.

 

Sure, the menu at the Bedford doesn’t feature any ground-breaking cuisine or extravagant presentation, but why should there? Instead than following trends, Martha Stewart’s brand is totally based on an air of elegance and timelessness. This menu serves as a timely reminder that Martha Stewart is still a terrific judge of excellent taste. She still has the ability to put together a wide variety of foods to satisfy a crowd without boring anyone. In addition, those meals are a genuinely ideal mix of glam-yet-subtle and utterly ’90s-chic, and they are exactly what I would aspire to eat if I were ever fortunate enough to be a guest in her home.

 

The baked potato side dish, which is crushed on a wooden board and adorned with creme fraiche, caviar, and other toppings tableside, does contain one instance of gimmicky showmanship. (Note: If you opt to go all-out with four ounces of golden Osetra, the Bedford’s $15 baked potato with caviar becomes a $267 side dish.) Big Martha’s pierogis, which are loaded with potato and topped with brown butter and her mother’s original recipe, add an extra special touch. You can also add $100 in caviar to these, which is perhaps not surprising.

 

Stewart joins other well-known chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Bobby Flay, a branch of Nobu, and Lisa Vanderpump’s new French eatery at the Paris, all of which make sense given the city’s celebrity-obsessed dining culture. But the minimalist beauty of Martha Stewart and her home in upstate New York are the furthest thing from what comes to me when I think of Las Vegas – glamorous showgirls, casinos, and so many lights. But a plate of salmon en croute is the only thing I can think of as a greater escape from the city’s commotion, din, and grimy splendour.