The Casino File
When La Strada at the Shore opened inside Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City it was an unusually bold move. After all, in a region — and city — where top-shelf Italian restaurants are part of the cultural fabric, it didn’t necessarily make a lot of sense to import such an operation from that hotbed of cucina Italiana, Reno, Nev.
But some two-and-a-half years after the dining room debuted, it’s clear the folks at Harrah’s corporate parent, Caesars Entertainment, knew what they were doing. La Strada at the Shore easily stands as one of Atlantic City’s top-tier purveyors of Italian cuisine.
The dining room, which is located on the second level overlooking the Voodoo Lounge, is the younger sister of La Strada, which has been filling bellies with high-end Italian food at Reno’s Eldorado Resort-Casino since 1978. It occupies the same space Martorano’s did from 2014 until it closed in the spring of 2023, about a month before LSAS debuted
There were few physical changes made in advance of the restaurant’s opening: The enter-past-the-bar layout, tiled floor (based on that of the Italian restaurant in “The Godfather” where Michael Corleone assassinated the drug kingpin Virgil Sollazo and his corrupt-police-captain henchman, Capt. McCluskey) and open kitchen remain. The radical difference is in the environment.
The atmosphere at Martorano’s was purposely and permanently set on “sensory overload,” thanks to its ultra-bright lighting, a DJ providing thumping beats and multiple screens displaying gangster movies including “Casino” and “Goodfellas” on non-stop loops (it was always fun to dive into a meal while watching Joe Pesci’s “Casino” character squish a guy’s head in a vise until his eyeball popped out of its socket!).
By contrast, at La Strada, the barely audible soundtrack and soothing, romantic lighting are far more, for lack of a better description, grown-up, and are conducive to quiet conversation and appreciation of the food.
As for the menu, LSAS pretty much hews to a classic bill of fare. “It’s Sicilian-southern-Italian food, but we also have a little bit of Calabrese and northern Italy,” explained Jason Kuey, who has served as the eatery’s executive chef since it opened. “Because we’re sisters with [the Reno operation], Ivano came up with the menu mostly, and we worked together to kind of take the recipes and make them a little more compatible for the East Coas,” he added, referring to Ivano Centimeri, who runs the kitchen in Reno.
“But we have different [vendors], so we had to take a lot of things that are available here and recreate what they have there.”
So, what should first-timers absolutely not miss?
“For me it would be the octopus [appetizer],” offered Kuey. “We have a fantastic grilled octopus with fried potatoes in an Nduja sausage aioli. It’s really nice.
“Pasta-wise, one of my favorites is the wild boar lasagna. We make it with provolone cheese and the wild boar ragu. We roll that up into a cylinder and we bake it in bechamel [a white sauce]. It’s been one of my favorites here since Day One.
“For an entree, I would go with our veal chop Parm. It’s fantastic. You get a 12-ounce veal chop pounded nice and thin and breaded. It’s quite a dish” (we can confirm his description!).
The price points at LSAS are in line with similar gaming hall establishments. However, the portions — especially the entrees — are impressively large. During a recent visit both the table’s entrees — veal chop and seafood fra diavlo (with lobster, scallops and shrimp and a side of pasta) — each could easily have fed two adults.
One thing that definitely sets La Strada at the Shore apart from the pack is Chef Jason — specifically where he’s stationed during business hours: He parks himself on the public side of the kitchen and stands with his back to the customers.
“I do it so all the food comes up to me, and I can see everything going out,” he reasoned. “I can make sure it’s prepared properly and looks presentable. And I control when the food comes up to the window. So, I’ll write down everything that they have to cook, and then they send it all up to me and I put it all together and out it goes.”
For more, go to www.caesars.com/harrahs-ac/restaurants/la-strada-at-the-shore.
Pitbull back at the Rock
If you can’t wait until New Year’s Eve to get the party started, note that global megastar singer-rapper-composer Pitbull returns to Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City this Friday and Saturday.
For the past several years, the man born Armando Christian Perez has hit the Rock the last week of the year. This weekend’s shows at Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena are his final public dates of 2025.
For tickets, go to ticketmaster.com.
Chuck Darrow has spent more than 40 years writing about Atlantic City casinos.
