A collection of world-class venues, celebrity chef restaurants and New York trendsetters is designed to attract global tourists and drive more business to local restaurants, bars and hotels.
Las Vegas Sands today announced it has signed memorandums of understanding with several leading restaurant groups as the foundation of a premier dining experience that will put Long Island on the culinary map for global tourism and drive significant visitation to local restaurants, bars, hotels and attractions.
Sands plans to deliver a carefully curated collection of food and beverage venues that augment the local landscape and lift the entire Long Island area with an influx of global tourists looking for a variety of experiences – from on-property offerings to regional flavor. Integral to the company’s plans is a five-star concierge program that will funnel visitors to local restaurants, bars and attractions.
Restaurant brands that have entered into agreements to explore dining concepts with Sands at the planned Long Island destination include Rao’s, Jean-Georges and estiatorio Milos, and multi-brand restaurant groups include 50 Eggs, D.ream International, Poll Restaurants of Long Island, Maximal Concepts and Lettuce Entertain You.
“The dining experiences we create will be a magnet for a global audience to view Long Island and its dining scene as must-experience destination,” Robert G. Goldstein, chairman and chief executive officer at Sands, said. “In every region we’ve entered, the restaurants at our resorts have accentuated existing offerings and contributed game-changing positive impact for the entire local hospitality industry.”
Complementing the local restaurant landscape with exciting new offerings, the Sands New York dining strategy reflects the company’s proven track record of creating world-class dining destinations with leading global chefs and restaurant groups, while celebrating the culinary trendsetters that can be found only in New York and on Long Island.
Among the restaurants most in demand for a table in New York, Rao’s headlines the New York trendsetters that have agreed to pursue dining concepts at the planned resort. The iconic eatery represents the heart and soul of Italian cuisine in New York and will be a flagship of the new Long Island resort, extending its presence further into the region. In addition, Sands has enlisted local Long Island favorite Poll Restaurants, with offerings including Bryant & Cooper Steakhouse, Majors Steakhouse, Cipollini Trattoria & Bar, Toku Modern Asian, Bar Frites Restaurant and Hendrick’s Tavern, to develop a dining concept at the resort.
Sands also will partner with renowned celebrity chefs who will attract a global following to Long Island. The company is working with one of the world’s most famous chefs to explore concepts at the planned resort: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a savvy restaurateur and businessman with more than 60 restaurants worldwide. In addition, 50 Eggs will leverage a lineup of renowned celebrity chefs such as Lorena Garcia and Tetsuya Wakuda, to explore concepts at the Sands New York resort. These chefs have created other memorable dining destinations – Chica and Wakuda – at Sands resorts in Las Vegas and Singapore.
Finally, tapping into the multi-channel platforms and dedicated global audiences of leading restaurant groups, Sands will be working with industry trailblazers including D.ream International, which owns and operates a suite of popular global restaurant brands such as Zuma, Amazonico, Coya and Nusr-Et, and Maximal Concepts, with an array of gastronomic experiences including its successful Mott 32, a restaurant focusing on authentic Chinese cuisine that pays homage to 32 Mott Street in New York, where the city’s first Chinese convenience store opened in 1891. Mott 32 is a top dining attraction at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
Rounding out the global restaurant groups collaborating with Sands for concept exploration at the Long Island resort are estiatorio Milos, one of the world’s top Greek cuisine brands and another previous Sands partner, and Lettuce Entertain You, which owns, manages and licenses more than 60 brands and 130 restaurants including Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab.
Through these offerings and its dedication to hospitality industry workforce development, Sands also has provided a platform to strengthen the food and beverage talent pool in Singapore. Marina Bay Sands’ strong mentorship culture involving both celebrity and in-house chefs has nurtured new generations of culinary and service talent, some of whom have found success outside the resort by opening their own award-winning restaurants.