Vol. 5, No. 4, April 2008
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Casino Interview
Wil Lee, Director of Food and Beverage and Joseph Giunta, Executive Chef Caesars Atlantic City
Managing the food and beverage operation at Caesars Atlantic City is no small task. Food and Beverage Director Wil Lee and Executive Chef Joseph Giunta oversee a total of 15 kitchens and 1,100 employees serving the property’s 10 restaurants and employee cafeteria. Lee and Giunta met last month with Casino Connection Editor Frank Legato to discuss the growing importance of fine dining as part of a casino resort’s list of amenities. To hear a full version of this interview, go to www.casinoconnectionac.com and click on the button for Boardwalk Podcast.
Casino Connection: Fine dining has always been a major part of the casino experience. How has the cuisine evolved in Atlantic City, and what are some of the new trends taking place in restaurants?
Wil Lee: If you look at Atlantic City even back in the 1980s, people used to get dressed up in their suits and fancy dresses to come out to the casinos and have their fine dining experience. As we have started moving into a more global cuisine, you find that people are starting to have a little more of a relaxed environment. You want people to be comfortable in their environment, so when you walk into a fine dining establishment, no longer do you have to be dressed to the hilt.
Our food is moving toward a lot less pretentiousness. We’re trying to stay away from the heavy sauces, we’re trying to focus on more regionally grown ingredients. We also focus on more of the global cuisine. There are many varied ethnic groups in Atlantic City, and in our feeder markets of New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. With those ethnic diversities, cuisine has reached a more global crescendo.
Do you find yourself having to adapt to changing trends in the area of culinary tastes?
Joseph Giunta: Absolutely. TV has opened up a world of new flavors, so to speak, for our guests. And, they’ve become much more dining-savvy. That’s a great thing for us, because now we get to explore some of those areas which even five years ago were considered outrageous or over the top. Now, pretty much anything can go. We try to explore, and we try to focus on regional ethnic selections with flavors true to their origin, and try to work on big, bold flavors, which our guests, having seen (the foods) on TV, can see are not too far-fetched for them.
In addition to the high-end outlets, there seems to have been a resurgence in casual dining with the appearance of food courts and other less formal outlets. Do you see this trend continuing?
WL: At this point, if we look at our own families and our own lives, time is at a premium. I think the dining experience of sitting two or three hours in a restaurant is probably long gone. Many of the dining experiences are quickly turned around, within a 30-minute period. They want a quick-service experience, but also with great food. Whether it’s in Mia, or at Kwi, our noodle bar, we want to know that it’s going to be good, and healthy for you, as well as a fast experience, where you can pretty much come in and out without having to worry about staying in one place. Those have become incredibly successful here in Atlantic City, and we will probably see more of those types of operation coming up soon.
At Harrah’s, we recently opened up A Taste of the Shore, with a Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, a sub shop, and some pizza as well, all with very quick service.
How do you see the buffet fitting into the overall F&B mix? Do you see more high-end buffet outlets playing a role?
JG: Yes, I believe buffets will continue to play an important role in casino food operations. Just look at what’s been done at Showboat with the French Quarter Buffet and Harrah’s Waterfront Buffet. They are spectacular buffets. The difference from the past is that the food is no longer going to be prepared in a banquet kitchen, where it’s sitting in chafing dishes waiting to be served, maybe not at its freshness peak. Moving forward, (buffets) will be more chef-driven dining experiences—small portions, prepared right in front of you—in which it will continue to be much more personalized.
The other aspect of that is that instead of very recognizable comfort foods, buffets are digging into a little more diverse cuisine—cuisine from Spain, from Asia, from Italy.
Where do you recruit your employees? What is the typical path an employee will take to work his or her way up?
WL: Here at Harrah’s, we have a tremendous recruitment center that we opened a year and a half ago located at Bally’s. We also want to look at world-class areas for recruitment. In the culinary aspect, we recruit from the Culinary Institute, Indianapolis and New York. We also work through Johnson & Wales—we have a recruitment program directly with them. We also work tremendously with Local 54. They have a great apprenticeship program, in which they have individuals work on our culinary team. We partner with Atlantic Cape Community College as well. So our outreach is extensive, from here to New York through to California, even into Hawaii. We have a great company, and we have a great team to find the best possible people.
Food is only one component of the dining experience. What are the most important other components?
WL: When you look at the overall food experience, I think all of us can count our best food experiences on one hand. It’s not about price; it’s not about a lot of the other things we’d normally consider, but we consider that with guest recognition, the ambience, the service, the style, and being able to make you feel part of the family.
What would you say is the jewel among restaurants at Caesars Atlantic City?
JG: We consider several of our restaurants as jewels. If you want a very simple Italian meal that most of our local southern New Jersey employees long for, Primavera is a jewel. Nero’s is a great steakhouse. We serve prime steaks, and the freshest seafood we can buy. Mia is a wonderful restaurant, with a celebrity-chef background with Georges Perrier and Chris Scarduzio. I think Wil’s and my favorite restaurant is our noodle bar, Kwi. If you want to talk about staying fit, there is no butter, no cream, no fat used in that cuisine. We eat healthy vegetables every day down there. The flavors are across the whole Asian world, from Vietnam to Singapore to China. We love eating down there. That’s a jewel to our Asian guests. We have several different jewels.
Atlantic City is striving to become a dining mecca to rival Las Vegas, South Beach, New York—all the top tourist destinations. Has it fulfilled that promise?
WL: Those are some great cities, and I’ve been blessed to work in every single one of those cities and experience all the food they have to offer. Atlantic City is quickly on its way to that world-class cuisine. Where else within a half-mile radius can you get Chinese, to steak, to Bobby Flay, to McCormick & Schmidt?
With more casinos coming on board, we will only make the entire region that much better. We look forward to Atlantic City being the dining mecca of the East Coast, and probably one of the crown jewels very soon, surpassing some of those others.
