Mike & Charlie’s combines Garozzo’s and Charlie Gitto’s all in one casino
Lady Luck and I are not friends — we’re barely even acquaintances. Unlike my father, who was a pretty savvy gambler, I’m lousy at all games of chance. But I have a couple of friends who play slot machines the way Joshua Bell handles the violin. Like virtuosos, I’m telling you.
I mention these two gambling women because they’re practically the only friends I have who ever take me out to dinner.
There’s a caveat to dining with the lady gamblers: We have to eat at one of the casino restaurants. Part of their lucky streak includes the comp points that entitle them to free meals — lots of them — in the more upscale casino dining rooms. Neither of these friends will venture into the lowbrow buffets, even the relatively well-laden Horizons Buffet at the Ameristar. Most of the gambling dens have at least one white-tablecloth restaurant. Maybe it’s a steakhouse (I’m particularly fond of The Range at Harrah’s and the Argosy’s Journey Wood-Fired Steaks) or something intimate and cozy, such as Farraddays’ at the Isle of Capri. The latter still serves a nicely done steak or seafood dinner, though the dining room is looking increasingly forlorn.
Not long after Ameristar Casino shut down its Italian restaurant, Bugatti’s Ristorante & Café (where I had several really fine meals), Harrah’s opened its own ristorante italiano with great fanfare: Mike & Charlie’s Italian Restaurant. It wasn’t a particularly risky move on the part of Las Vegas-based Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. Almost any dining concept that the company put in the space formerly occupied by the ill-conceived Moby’s Fish Tales would have been an improvement.
Even with my luck, I’m willing to bet that Mike & Charlie’s will succeed. The odds are definitely stacked in its favor, starting with its namesake proprietors — iconic restaurateurs Mike Garozzo and Charlie Gitto. Gravel-voiced Garozzo is probably the best-known purveyor of Italian-American cuisine in Kansas City; his four restaurants are extremely popular and serve consistently first-rate fare. I’m less familiar with Gitto, who owns Charlie Gitto’s on the Hill in St. Louis. A friend of mine from that city — a real food snob — has always raved about Gitto’s food, so I’ll take her word for it.
The first time I ventured into Mike & Charlie’s, my friend Bob and I were guests of the high-rolling Georgina, queen of the comps. It wasn’t long after the restaurant’s much-publicized grand opening, and Garozzo was still playing the celebrity host, shaking hands and pointing out two of his beautiful daughters who were working in the joint.
Georgina is not my friend’s real name. As much as she loves the excitement and risk of her casino compulsion, she’s still in the closet about this aspect of her personal life. The women in her bridge club might be scandalized to see her sitting, mesmerized, at an I Dream of Jeannie slot machine or to find out that she could easily pay an expensive restaurant bill with only her comp credits.
But that night, I was the recipient, along with Bob and Georgina’s tolerant husband, Edward (not his real name, either), of her largesse. “Order anything you want,” she told us.
We did. Bob insisted on his own starter, a sumptuous pillow of pesto ravioli in a supple Gorgonzola-cream sauce, sided with sautéed shrimp in spicy Diablo sauce. I shared a meaty stuffed artichoke, perfectly steamed and dripping with bread crumbs, bits of pink prosciutto, tiny shrimp and melted cheese. It’s not an appetizer I typically like (I’ve tasted so many soggy or tough versions in other restaurants), but this was exceptionally good and fun to share.
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Because money was no object, Bob ordered that night’s beef special: an expensive but top-shelf and gorgeously juicy 22-ounce bone-in rib-eye blanketed with blue cheese and butter. Georgina’s lemony chicken spiedini Giovanni — a Garozzo signature dish — was also a winner. Fussy Edward wasn’t so thrilled with his balsamic-glazed salmon and toothpick-slender asparagus, and I was downright disappointed with the “milk-fed” veal saltimbocca. Someone in the kitchen had aggressively pounded the veal until it was barely thicker than a sheet of Charmin. Even worse, it was tough. Our service that night was excellent, though: The waiter was a professional trainer from Charlie Gitto’s place in St. Louis.
I wish I’d had the same pro on the night I went back with Addison and Franklin. That night’s waiter, a pleasant and attractive young man, just wasn’t into his job. “Oh, yes, we have specials,” he said brightly when we asked him. But he could remember only one, and barely: “We have a tenderloin stuffed with lobster,” he said. He described it as a hunk of meat sided with a lobster tail. Later we overheard another server describe, with passion, the actual dish (beef stuffed with pieces of lobster meat) as well as sautéed diver scallops — she called them shallots — in a pomegranate-truffle sauce. I wish I could have tasted that.
“He’s just clueless,” snorted Addison, who found lots to criticize at Mike & Charlie’s. Addison, who spent decades as a waiter and is seriously devoted to dining out, has never been shy about expressing his opinions. He grudgingly admitted liking the interior of the large room, with its large black-and-white photographs of Italian-American femmes fatales (Rene Russo, Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Connie Francis, Nancy Sinatra). And it’s so quiet, you can’t hear the noisy casino floor at all. “But the rolls taste like Pepperidge Farm,” he said. “And it doesn’t have the energy or charm of any of the Garozzo restaurants. It’s underwhelming.”
He harped that his wedge salad, served with a sweet-and-sour vinaigrette, should have had Gorgonzola dressing instead of just crumbles. And he practically sulked when his chicken parmigiana was set in front of him. “It’s not pounded and fried!” he whined.
“Good Lord,” I snapped, “this isn’t the Olive Garden.” I traded plates with him and let him have my bowl of tortellini Gina — another Garozzo favorite — made with fat pasta purses stuffed with chicken and prosciutto and draped in a wonderful, rich cream sauce. He was only partly assuaged. “This sauce is gummy,” he said.
It wasn’t. I took a liberal amount for myself, and it was excellent. So was the chicken. I’m tired of the Americanized “parmigiana” dish in which the chicken or veal is pounded ridiculously flat, heavily breaded and fried until it’s as tough as a Frisbee, then smothered in tomato sauce. Most Midwestern diners do like the dish that way, but I don’t. These chicken breasts were plump and juicy, dusted with bread crumbs instead of breaded, and were tender under a delicate spoonful of fresh-tasting sugo.
Franklin is a longtime Garozzo groupie, so he wisely ordered his favorite dish from the man’s repertoire: a simply prepared but memorable chicken lemonata. The chicken breasts were bountiful, drizzled with a sauce of white wine, real butter, lemon juice and tart capers. “It’s wonderful, as always,” he said, beaming. “I love Mike Garozzo’s food.”
“I do, too,” Addison blurted. “And this isn’t like Garozzo’s. When you go to the original one, it’s like you know everyone there even if you don’t. This feels like it’s in a Miami Beach hotel.”
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I’ll give him that point. Mike & Charlie’s doesn’t have the distinctive sense of neighborhood or the joie de vivre of the other Garozzo restaurants, but it doesn’t have to. It’s in a casino. What matters is that it makes Georgina and her high-rolling friends feel right at home.
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