Le Caviar Imperial

Solving Robuchon: How Chef Eleazar Villanueva Recreated a 16-Course Classic

8 Minute read

09 Oct 2025

Julie Tremaine

Journalist

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For Joël Robuchon’s 20th anniversary in Las Vegas, Executive Chef Eleazar Villanueva reconstructed the opening 16-course menu—without the recipes—calling former chefs, translating binders, and reviving dishes that still surprise.

Normally, the only question at Joël Robuchon comes from those intricately plated dishes—how did they do that? But to mark the Las Vegas restaurant’s 20th anniversary, Executive Chef Eleazar Villanueva faced a far bigger culinary mystery: recreating Joël Robuchon’s original 16-course degustation menu—seven years after the chef’s death and without his recipes.

“To replicate something that was done 20 years ago from a chef of the century, it’s not easy,” says Chef Villanueva, “especially with him not being here anymore.”

As a celebration of the restaurant’s 20th anniversary, Villanueva recreated Chef Robuchon’s original opening menu for one weekend only, October 3–6. “I wanted to do something to bring his name back,” he said. “I felt like Robuchon, especially here in Las Vegas, was kind of falling back. I just wanted people to understand—those who don’t know or weren’t here when this restaurant opened—what this meant for Las Vegas, what it meant for the food scene here, and what it meant for him.”

Joël Robuchon is as well known for dismantling the trappings of fine dining as for being the most decorated Michelin-starred chef of all time. Before his death in 2018, he amassed a record 32 Michelin stars (2016); at the time of his passing, his restaurants held 24. (Today, Alain Ducasse is the most-awarded living chef, with 21 Michelin stars.)

He skyrocketed to fame with his first Paris restaurant, Jamin (later Joël Robuchon), which earned one, then two, then three Michelin stars in its first three years. Disillusioned with the stiffness surrounding haute cuisine, he closed the landmark and resurfaced in a former sushi bar in Paris—serving food of the same caliber in a far more casual setting. The accolades kept coming, and he set a global template for relaxed fine dining. You could argue that today’s ubiquitous chef’s counter wouldn’t look the same without L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon challenging the notion that tuxedoed service is required to enjoy haute cuisine.

When Robuchon came to Las Vegas, he did something similar. L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon opened at MGM Grand in 2005, with counter seating facing the kitchen; the more formal Joël Robuchon followed in 2006, in the same casino. Vegas already had fine dining—Wolfgang Puck’s Spago among them—but nothing like Robuchon’s multi-course degustation menus. “It was at the top of the top for Vegas,” Villanueva said. “There was nothing to it. I don’t think there’s [still] anything close to it, on its level.”

He’s been working on piecing this celebratory menu together since January. “For something like this that was going to be so important to me and the team here, I wanted it to be perfect,” he said. Villanueva is the youngest Robuchon executive chef and was nominated for a 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest.

The work meant combing through huge binders—“mostly in French,” he added—hunting for the originals, then calling former Joël Robuchon chefs to fill in the blanks. There were calls to San Francisco, and calls to France in the middle of the night.

“I wanted my team here and in this casino to see what the food was like 20 years ago,” Villanueva said. “What are his flavor profiles, the plating, all these things, you know? I wanted everybody to see his food, because when he opened it, he was at the very top.”

Some of those opening dishes were head-scratchers not just because the recipes were missing, but because of the components themselves. “Some of these dishes, you wouldn’t think some of these ingredients go together,” Villanueva said. “Once it’s a whole puzzle put together—once it’s built—it’s like, oh my God, this makes so much sense. The flavors, the flavor profile, the intensity, the sweetness, the tartness. It is amazing to see how they created these things.”

Villanueva was particularly surprised by “le thon,” a tuna tartare with cold red bell pepper confit, bergamot, and dry-cured ham. It was such an unexpected success that he’s decided to leave it on the fall menu. A handful of the special-event dishes will be available through the season, so guests can experience a bit of culinary history even if they couldn’t be there for the event itself.

Others include “la pomme de terre,” described on the menu as “shaved truffles and potatoes with olive oil, topped with carpaccio of foie gras”; and “le homard de Bretagne,” lobster “under a disappearing saffron hostie” in bouillabaisse. That dish, in particular, hasn’t been served in the almost decade that Villanueva has worked at the restaurant. In its own way, that’s continuing Robuchon’s legacy, too.

“He always liked to promote from within, and one way he did was by keeping everybody interested,” he said. “He kept teaching them. He kept everybody learning. Everybody was learning. Always, always, always, you know?”

09 Oct 2025