You Gotta Eat: Maggiano's

I can't eat another bite: Maggiano's already famous for generous proportions

By Moranda Grey

You can usually expect to have to wear your "fat clothes" to an Italian restaurant. You'll most likely be consuming large quantities of something laden with cheese, not to mention a cornucopia of carbs in several forms. The key to this type of dining has always been to go with a few friends. On this particular Saturday, I didn't--and with much regret. My one friend and I visited Maggiano's at the Fashion Show and subsequently walked out with eight to-go boxes, including desserts of creme brulee served in what might as well have been soup bowls, and the largest piece of cheesecake I've ever seen.

We should have guessed the creme brulee wouldn't travel well, but as for the rest, we nibbled for several days on chicken carcass and leftover pasta before throwing away the remaining four boxes. It was just way too much food. And when we got to thinking about tsunami victims and Sally Struthers serving congealed white paste to refugees, we felt so damn guilty for being gluttonous, wasteful Americans. That's the power of Maggiano's.

The decor of Maggiano's is 1940s-style bistro, with dramatic red curtains and red- and white-checkered tablecloths. Chandeliers invoke a charming sense of old-world Italian elegance. But somewhere between looking traditional and tasting authentic, a certain luster was nonetheless lost. Although the huge portions that seemed to never stop coming also seemed to be served in bigger and bigger bowls, the space between tables seemed to become smaller and smaller. Wedged between one group of people who let me know when my handbag was open and another group whose chair legs kept catching my coat, we felt a bit squashed. Servers had to often maneuver sideways in order to deliver drinks.

The wine list was moderate, with several domestic and Italian wines. The crowd consisted of robust individuals who were familiar with the portion sizes and invited the restaurant to bring it on; tables of locals who went the drinks-and-appetizers route; and tourists who came for the ambience and panoramic view of Wynn Las Vegas just across the street.

It became clear that the bang (and button-popping) for their buck is too tempting for people not to try Maggiano's again and again. And the menu, the cause of my increasing dress size, serves up the family-style dinner for $29.95 per person, and beyond that has almost every Southern Italian dish a person could think of from $8-$20 per entree. Our buffet of dishes consisted of pasta with marinara, chicken parmigiano, cheese-stuffed ravioli and veal marsala. All were on par for a restaurant with Maggiano's price point, and were exactly what a person would expect from any restaurant of its kind--good food, good service, decent atmosphere--but bad indigestion.