Award-winning restaurant and bar, local favorite and traveler’s favorite for 21 years. Fine Italian dining, fresh original cocktails, and whole-hearted service. Now open Sundays 4pm – 9pm . Flamingo/Jones. Full Slideshow at Bottom.
Gino and Nora Mauro started Nora’s Cuisine in 1991. They’ve grown and expanded a little each year, while keeping in focus their first priority: serving extraordinary Italian cuisine in a pleasant, elegant environment. Marcello Mauro, their son, is the general manager.
The night my friend and I dined, we had the pleasure of meeting another manager, Joemar Grey. Joemar, dressed in a crisp, pin-striped blue shirt and bowtie, showed me around the restaurant and explained some of the family and cuisine history. Joemar has worked there nine years. I explained to him that I had come based on countless recommendations from friends, who couldn’t believe I lived in Las Vegas and hadn’t enjoyed Nora’s yet.
Nora’s started with one main room, “the kitchen,” able to seat twelve, and have expanded to three large rooms along with a classy cocktail bar. Warm-colored tapestries drape the walls, along with family pictures and historical pictures of Italy. The cocktail bar uses only fresh ingredients, many of which you can see stacked alongside the bottles, including oranges, lemons, limes, and cucumbers. The restaurant and bar have won numerous awards over the years; one just this year—Urban Spoon, Best Las Vegas Restaurants.
Joemar also introduced me to one of their main bartenders and mixologists, Rudy Guevara-Quiroz. Rudy recently created “Rossa Velluto” made from ZING Red Velvet Vodka, Licor 43, and Cream Chocolate Confetti. It tastes heavenly, like drinking chocolate red velvet cake on a puffy cloud of lightly-whipped cream. They went through several experiments to reach the final delicious creation; for example, they needed to procure the right texture of chocolate sprinkles that would sit on a glass rim without melting too fast.
My friend and I then enjoyed Arancini for an appetizer — deep fried saffron risotto balls, filled with mozzarella cheese, peas, and meat sauce. I followed this with their signature dish, Crazy Alfredo: classic fettucine Alfredo piled with chicken, sausage, jumbo shrimp, porcini mushrooms, domestic mushrooms, roasted bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and jalapeños. Every dish was outstanding.
For lunch and bar menus or other information, please visit their site: http://www.norascuisine.com
Nora’s Cuisine has stood the test of time, and keeps growing, experimenting, and improving. These are the places I love most.
