Craftsteak

Where the Strip's Steakhouse Ambitions Meet Farm-Sourced Discipline

The MGM Grand's dining corridor has hosted enough high-profile restaurant openings and quiet closures over the years to give any long-standing tenant a certain earned authority. Walk into Craftsteak and the room reads that confidence without broadcasting it: a contemporary dining room with large round banquettes for groups, a bar area tight enough to feel like its own space, and a wine display behind the bar holding a collection that runs to 3,900 bottles. The atmosphere is business casual in dress code and genuinely relaxed in practice, which places it in a tier of Strip dining rooms that take the food seriously without requiring a jacket.

That balance between accessibility and ambition tracks through the kitchen's sourcing philosophy. At a moment when the Las Vegas steakhouse market splits between theatrical production houses and protein-forward institutions, Craftsteak operates with a different organizing principle: the fresher the source, the better the outcome. Vegetables, fruits, and meats come from local and small farms, a commitment that shows up not just in the steak program but in an unusually developed vegetable menu for a room named after beef. This is not incidental. It reflects the broader shift that James Beard Award-winning chef Tom Colicchio has pursued across his portfolio, a portfolio that puts Craftsteak in company with some of the more thoughtful chef-driven restaurants in the United States.

The Sourcing Argument on the Plate

In steakhouse terms, provenance has become a primary differentiator. The category has moved well beyond USDA Prime as a marketing ceiling, and the upper tier now involves documented supply chains, breed specificity, and verifiable farm relationships. Craftsteak makes its position clear by ranging across both domestic and international sourcing: Angus beef from American producers sits alongside Australian A5 wagyu, the latter representing the highest grade within Japan's wagyu classification system, now widely exported to premium steakhouse programs globally. Offering both on the same menu is a deliberate choice, giving the diner a way to compare production philosophies within a single dinner.

The farm-to-table framing, which can feel formulaic when applied loosely, carries more weight here because it extends to the vegetable program. Roasted beet salad with clementines, crispy sunchokes with thyme, braised Brussels sprouts — these are not afterthoughts filling out a steakhouse menu. They are the products of the same sourcing framework applied to produce, and they anchor the vegetarian tasting menu, which reads as a genuine alternative rather than an accommodation. That kind of menu architecture is more common at places like Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg or The French Laundry in Napa, where the kitchen's relationship with agricultural suppliers is the editorial center of the experience. Finding it inside an MGM Grand steakhouse is worth noting.

The Colicchio Credential and What It Implies

Chef-branded restaurants on the Strip exist on a spectrum. At one end sit the licensing arrangements where a name appears above a door and the kitchen runs largely independently. At the other end are operations where the chef's training lineage and culinary point of view remain legible in the menu structure. Craftsteak sits closer to the latter. Tom Colicchio holds a James Beard Award, carries a career rooted in technique-first American cooking, and built his reputation at restaurants that treated sourcing as a non-negotiable starting point rather than a marketing add-on. That credential is a Tier A trust signal in any peer comparison.

The day-to-day kitchen runs under Chef Mike Chapman, with Francesca Sgandurra also in the chef column. The sommelier program sits with Troy Grenstiner and Todd Cunningham, who oversee a wine list built around California and Bordeaux with a corkage fee of $50. The General Manager is Greg Gayhart. This is a staffed, professionally run operation rather than a shell — a detail that matters when comparing it against Strip competitors where senior talent can rotate frequently.

For context on what a Colicchio-linked kitchen program looks like at the higher end of the national fine dining market, see Le Bernardin in New York City or Alinea in Chicago , kitchens operating at different price points and ambition levels, but sharing the same commitment to treating sourcing and technique as inseparable. Craftsteak operates within that broader American chef-driven tradition, adapted to a Las Vegas hotel context.

Signature Dishes and the Three-Day Short Rib

Some dishes announce a kitchen's priorities faster than any sourcing statement. Craftsteak's braised short ribs take three days to produce, with a 24-hour braise that delivers a texture described in multiple sources as soft with a toothsome bite. The labor intensity of this dish is a structural argument: no kitchen running on thin margins and low-care sourcing builds a signature around a three-day preparation. It is a signal about how the kitchen approaches time as an ingredient.

The tasting format, offered as a three-course menu, is the structured way through the kitchen's range, covering ground from beef to the seafood-adjacent starter program. The lobster bisque, a tarragon-spiced soup with four ounces of lobster, functions as a surf-and-turf entry point without requiring a full entrée-scale commitment. The surf-and-turf proper appears as an A5 wagyu pairing, calibrated for the guest who wants both production traditions in a single dish.

Pastry chef Carrie Chesto rounds out the meal with a dessert program that includes at least six rotating house-made ice cream and sorbet flavors. Kaffir lime leaf ice cream and cranberry orange sorbet are recorded examples, alongside the monkey bread , a cinnamon roll format served with brown sugar sour cream ice cream , which has become the house specialty. At this end of the meal, the sourcing philosophy applied to savory courses translates into a pastry program built on craft production rather than commercial sourcing.

The Wine Room and Where Craftsteak Sits Among Strip Steakhouses

The Strip's premium steakhouse category is competitive in a way that few dining markets replicate. Bazaar Meat by Jose Andres operates at the theatrical end of the spectrum, blending Spanish-American technique with a performance-forward format. Peter Luger Steak House in New York represents the other extreme: no-concession beef purism, minimal sides, zero theatrical framing. Craftsteak occupies a middle position, combining serious sourcing credentials with a complete dining room experience that includes a developed wine program and a dessert course built to sustain attention through to the end of the meal.

The wine list carries 850 selections from an inventory of 3,900 bottles, priced at the $$$ tier, meaning a significant share of the list runs above $100 per bottle. California and Bordeaux are the primary strengths, which aligns with the farm-sourced, American-inflected menu philosophy. The physical display of the collection behind the bar gives the program a visual presence that integrates it into the room rather than treating it as a back-of-house function.

For guests comparing across the MGM Grand's dining options, Craftsteak functions as the hotel's anchor steakhouse. The broader dining floor at MGM includes volume-format options, and the hotel strip itself encompasses everything from Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars to Bardot Brasserie and Aburiya Raku for Japanese counter dining. Craftsteak earns its position by holding a specific culinary lane rather than competing across categories.

Planning a Visit

Craftsteak serves dinner and is located inside the MGM Grand at 3799 S Las Vegas Blvd. The dress code is business casual. Families traveling with children will find a kids menu available, though it is described as limited in scope. For guests building a Las Vegas itinerary around serious dining, the full context is available through our Las Vegas restaurants guide, as well as our guides covering Las Vegas hotels, bars, wineries, and experiences. For reference points beyond the Strip, Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar & Grill provides a strong alternative for evenings where the program shifts away from beef entirely. CUT Singapore offers an international comparison point for the chef-branded steakhouse format operating within a hotel context. The restaurant holds a Google rating of 4.5 from over 2,000 reviews, a signal of consistent execution across a high volume of covers rather than a single exceptional night.