Wolfgang Puck’s new Italian concept Caramá made a quiet debut over Super Bowl weekend in February, but now it’s time to recognize this notable transition. Located at Mandalay Bay just inside the casino entrance from the westside parking garage, Lupo was an Italian institution on the Strip for more than two decades, one of the last restaurants standing from the resort’s earliest dining lineups. It closed in the fall and was renovated through the holidays, the final location for Puck’s Lupo brand.
“It’s like an evolution of what we had,” Puck tells the Weekly. “The hotel wanted change and I told them, the people in LA, they know Lupo, so we really have to re-establish a new name, which will take time. But I think the restaurant is beautiful and we are excited to have changed it, and it’s really sort of a love letter now.”
Caramá honors the legendary chef and restaurateur’s mother, Maria, a chef who taught him to cook Italian cuisine when Puck was in his young teen years, and when they worked together in a hotel at the Wörthersee lake in southern Austria. Puck was born in Sankt Veit an der Glan, near Austria’s border with Italy.
Caramá interior
“We always said we were gonna have an Italian restaurant with Italian food,” says Puck, who famously incorporated pasta and pizza into his iconic menus at Spago and other restaurants. “When you go to a fancy Italian restaurant, three-star type places, you’d think you’re eating in France or something—little portions, not strong flavors. We wanted to have really strong Italian flavors, use good olive oil and basil and garlic, keep the food simple but very tasty.”
The results of this soulful approach to a favorite cuisine include faithful classics like rigatoni Amatriciana ($30) with guanciale, rosemary and Pecorino cheese; linguine and clams ($34); and oven-baked lasagna ($32) with beef Bolognese. Puck and his kitchen crew are using more house-made fresh pasta than you’ll find at his other eateries, and when dry pasta is called for, it’s gotta be perfectly cooked.
“When my son was younger, 7 or 8, the housekeeper used to cook pasta for him, and he’d say, ‘If it’s mushy, I don’t like it. Only al dente.’ I taught him that,” Puck says. “Once you’re used to it, that’s the way it should be and it tastes totally different.”
He recommends first timers at Caramá eat like he eats when in Italy, sharing some pasta dishes and moving on to a fish dish like salt-baked sea bass for the table ($84) or grilled swordfish with broccoli di ciccio and Sicilian sundried tomato pesto ($49).
But first, start with some salumi selections, imported meats and cheeses and marinated veggies that make up one of the menu’s centerpieces. Pizza options and light antipasti like burrata and radicchio ($25) and bigeye tuna tartare ($31) round out those first-round shareables, and another standout main course is porchetta Romana ($48), roasted pork belly with garlic and rosemary and a crispy skin. That dish is one of Puck’s new favorites.
“I’m very excited,” he says. “To me, it’s all about the ingredients, that’s what Italian cooking is all about, not a fancy ravioli with three different sauces and lots of cream and butter. We want to make food where people will say, ‘Oh my god, that was delicious,’ and it makes you feel good, but you also want to go back next week.”
CARAMÁ Mandalay Bay, 702-740-5522, wolfgangpuck.com. Sunday-Thursday, 5-10 p.m.; Friday & Saturday, 5-10:30 p.m.
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