A Great Meetup

Latin-inspired restaurant offers tasty cocktails and shareable dishes in a classy cantina setting

Get a taste of California’s Latin-inspired cuisine at Resorts World Las Vegas, where Ray Garcia’s ¡VIVA! offers brunch, lunch and dinner all week long. Garcia, whose elevated cuisine has thrilled Southern California diners for years, brought a variety of favorites to his Las Vegas showpiece.

The restaurant, situated in the District, features two patios, one indoor along the promenade and the outdoors opposite the entrance. The entire place channels a classy Latin cantina, with hanging rope walls on the interior patio, cane-back chairs and plush booths in the restaurant’s main dining area. You’ll also find large murals channeling Latin motifs on the walls throughout—it all creates a fun, yet at the same time upscale, environment.

Grab a margarita, paloma or bottomless sangria, then settle down to the serious business of chips and salsa, served with heirloom corn tortilla chips and salsa tatemada. Some diners may require guacamole, and that comes with pico de gallo and chips as well. You’ll also find a good selection of Mexican beers, tequila and mezcal, plus a variety of other appetizers are sure to pique the appetite, like coctel camarone, a shrimp cocktail with Clamato, cucumber and avocado, or the coctel mixto, with seafood like snapper, shrimp, octopus and bay scallops.

Brunch dishes feature items such as chilaquiles, a barbacoa melt and chorizo con huevos, with pork chorizo, scrambled eggs and refried lentils for an unexpected touch. Mimosas come in flavors like mango, orange and watermelon. For lunch, grab cauliflower tacos with cashew cream or chicken tinga with guacamole and pickled red onions. Platos especiales include items like the torta (carnitas on bolillo bread), salmon with dried chorizo and chicken enchiladas.

The selection gets even bigger at dinner, where you can enjoy duck mole (a confit duck leg with mole negro), vegan squash tamales, grilled pineapple with goat cheese, shareable costillas (a rack of lamb with ancho-rubbed ribs and cabbage slaw), and carne asada in New York strip, filet mignon and skirt steak. –Nina King

Resorts World Las Vegas, 702.676.7591