Nat Belkov/Eater
Restraint is so passé
After three years of darkness, preceded by a kinda bummer five of schmancy, frowny food — you know, blond wood, backless barstools, everything is foraged, and the chef glowers silently — restaurants are fun again. Move over, sea buckthorn (you tart berry). Helllooooo, caviar bumps, cocaine of the sea! Everything is illuminated…with neon lights. Everyone is seated in giant hand-shaped chairs or squiggly legged ones. Glasses are bird-shaped and stippled and bright. Plates are your grandmother’s most florid. There’s enough gold leaf to make a forest. And the food, strangely still important, is a bass-amped banger of influence and excess. Anything that can be done tableside is. And with brio.
Not only are restaurants fun again, they’re, like, really fun — like over-the-top Decline and Fall of Roman Civilization maximalist fun. Why? Myriad the reasons, many the factors. Could it be because the world’s ending anyway? (Climate change! War! Economic inequality! Why not go out with cheese pulls and flaming bananas?) Or could it just be the same human hunger for pleasure that’s animated our kind since prelapsarian times, now just supercharged with capital and amphetamined by social media? Regardless, like a catnipped kitty chasing a laser pointer, we the people are both jazzed and curious. So Eater went maximalist to the hilt. We went on a gonzo psycho-gustatory pilgrimage to the Land Where More Began: Las Vegas. We paid a visit to Molly Baz, whose new cookbook, More Is More, is an ode to going big, for all the cae sals and gorgigi sandos you can imagine. We found the hands-down most Big-Time Fun restaurants in America. We ate all the ’roni cups and rib eyes. We got full. We got sick. We got happy. We had fun to the max. — Joshua David Stein
The 19 Most Funnest, Most Wildest, Most Over-the-Top Restaurants in America
Where eating is a guaranteed good time
Full House
Cord Jefferson goes gonzo in Vegas, America’s id
More Is More, Molly Is Molly
Welcome to Bazland
Why More Is Fun
Five experts explain why we love a lot a lot right now
Confessions of a Tableside Flambéur
A pro dishes on the ultimate tableside flex
Fun by Design
Day-Glo sconces! Gordo grinders! Dangling pothos!
This Is Muffin-Top Dining
What happens when we only eat the best part?
The Cup Overfloweth
Drinking in the golden age of golden ages
Eat Your Art Out
Going big with food is nothing new — just ask the Egyptians
Where to Ball Out
From seafood towers to gold leaf tomahawks, find maps to the most over-the-top eating across America
Credits
Editorial lead: Joshua David Stein
Project manager: Lesley Suter
Creative director: Nat Belkov
Contributors: Matt Buchanan, Cathy Chaplin, Farley Elliott, Olee Fowler, Jackie Gutierrez-Jones, Brooke Jackson-Glidden, Cord Jefferson, Rachel P. Kreiter, Matt Lardie, Clair Lorell, Bettina Makalintal, Melissa McCart, Amy McCarthy, Laura Neilson, Emma Orlow, Tierney Plumb, Adam Reiner, Lauren Saria, Jaya Saxena, Katie Shapiro, Courtney E. Smith, Susan Stapleton, Candice Woo
Editors: Talia Baiocchi, Rachel P. Kreiter, Lesley Suter
Designer: Lille Allen
Copy editor: Leilah Bernstein
Fact checker: Kelsey Lannin
Engagement editors: Kaitlin Bray, E Jamar, Kristen Kornbluth
Photographers: Denise Crew, Rick R. Ledesma
Animators: Judson Valdez, Molly Valdez
Special thanks to: Monica Burton, Erin DeJesus, John Farrell, Missy Frederick, Amanda Kludt, Ellie Krupnick, Jess Mayhugh, Janelle Miller, Ryan Norton, Stephanie Wu, Jessie Yarborough
