If you drive down Charleston Blvd. in Summerlin looking for Vintner Grill, good luck because you won’t find it. Which is annoying if you haven’t been there, but if you’ve dropped in before, you might feel a certain smugness about knowing its hideaway location, nestled among a few office buildings just north of Charleston. 

The restaurant is comfortably elegant, modern + spacious with multiple areas in which to dine plus there’s a big outside patio. It should be pointed out that Vintner Grill is gorgeously lit, and there’s something to be said for restaurants with sympathetic lighting. Who doesn’t want to look ageless, especially when the pandemic has messed with all of us?

This was our second visit to Vintner, and it was absolutely packed on a Thursday night. The menu—“American dishes infused with flavors from Spain, France and Italy —is instantly inviting + imaginative, and the well-trained servers sell it well. 

The two appetizers we had are highly recommended: pan seared crabcakes, with tarragon cream sauce, and the oven-roasted beets with lavender goat cheese. You can easily detect the chef’s playfulness touch, which was also evident in the braised lamb bolognese with black pepper tagliatelle, truffle ricotta + grated nutmeg. The other entree—Mediterranean sea bass with meyer lemon buerre blanc—was perfectly tender + subtly hit the right notes. 

Noting how fresh + flavorful the appetizers + entrees were, it would’ve been criminal to leave without ordering dessert, and the mix of textures in the apple pie tart with caramel sauce + ice cream was dazzling. It’s the kind of life-affirming dessert that should be served to dictators in order to make them rethink pressing the nuclear button.