One of the great gifts to Las Vegas diners over the last ten years has been the exodus of name chefs from Strip restaurants and their relocation to the suburbs. You don’t often see groups of high end chefs leaving New York City to open up their own places in Rockland Country, but in Vegas, things are different.
The high pressure, easy burnout of cooking on one of the most famous streets in the world has led to many chefs preferring to do something at a slower pace in the ‘burbs. Most importantly, these chefs aren’t cooking for someone else anymore. Now they are able to cook their own food. No matter how casual, they are doing what they want to do.
Perhaps the first person to make waves doing this was Chris Palmeri. He is the owner of two successful Naked City Pizza Shops today, but his first off-Strip venture was a hot dog cart outside of Dino’s on karaoke-filled weekends. If you are wondering what kind of establishment Dino’s is, it has won awards as the “Best Dive Bar”.
The hot dogs were great, but in his brick and mortar, Palmeri is able to show off more of his repertoire. Naked City bills itself as a pizza place and the pizza is top notch, but they also do mean chicken fingers and wings, sandwiches, fries and appetizers. (Salads are on the menu, but this isn’t the kind of place you come to for a salad.)
We opted for the Naked City on Paradise location. It’s a standalone restaurant in an industrial park next to a bar. It feels like it could be in most cities, a hidden winner that only locals and foodies might now about. The cherry red wooden tables give the place a fun feel. The other Naked City is inside of Moon Doggies Bar and its clientele is a more rowdy contingency.
From the starters section, we went with chicken wing dip ($10). It’s an accurate representation of the type of food Naked City serves. Tasty, hearty, greasy, crave-worthy grub. Chicken, blue cheese dressing, mozzarella and hot sauce are baked together, creating a gooey dip that would be welcome during any football game. The blue cheese and hot sauce are natural dance partners. The mozzarella holds it all together. And the chicken is breaded and chopped, like little chicken fingers. It’s served with some very good herb flatbread, puffy and doughy with nice air pockets.
The French fries are so good it makes me wish other restaurants that like to serve specialty fries would bring Palmeri in to consult. Usually I go with the loaded potato which has all the toppings of a baked potato on them, but this time we opted for the scorching hot suicide fries. ($5 small, $7 large).The hot pepper mix included jalapenos and cherry peppers. It is all doused with habenero suicide sauce and the whole thing is for heat seekers only. It was too hot for me, but my dining partner loved them. One thing I appreciated was that the potatoes were fried until they were golden and crisp so they were able to withstand the heavy toppings.
Palmeri is a native of Buffalo, New York. His food is an homage to the blue collar, Northeast town he grew up in. The pizza he remembers is thick, Sicilian pan pizza. And that’s what he serves in his establishments. His pies come in quarter, half and full sheets. There are 13 specialty pies plus the obligatory cheese and pepperoni. We chose three quarter sheets.
The least successful was The Stinger ($14.50). It’s an amalgam of roast beef, chicken fingers, sweet and hot peppers, blue cheese dressing, cheddar and mozzarella. It’s one of those “sounds ridiculous, is ridiculous” pizzas. Not that it was bad. But most of the flavors got lost. And overall, it couldn’t compare to the other two.
The Back Home ($13.50) was unique. Advertised as “red sauce and mozzarella mixed together”, that’s exactly what it was. The squares of dough were covered in a pinkish-white hue and the combination made for extra cheesy goodness. Pepperoni, sausage, and parmesan were added to the mix to make an excellent pizza. Chances are slim you’ll find another one like this in town.
The Guinea Pie ($13.50) was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, and is so delicious it should be featured in pizza competitions. Grandma’s meatballs, spinach, ricotta, white garlic sauce and mozzarella complete this masterpiece. The yummy meatballs are clearly homemade. You can see the spices in the grind. The spinach is fresh and retains bite. The sauce and cheese are both legit. And the ricotta makes everything pop. The creaminess is perfect and the crunchy, hefty crust holds it all together beautifully as it does for all of the restaurant’s pies.
When Palmeri went solo, there were probably those in The Strip dining scene who scoffed at the notion that he could make it the way he has. But success can be defined in many ways. At Naked City, you can define it with by the quality of their food and the loyalty of their customers. Who needs The Strip anyway?
Naked City Pizza 4608 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, NV 89169
(702) 722-2241 www.nakedcitylv.com
