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Vegan Options at Grand Lux Cafe
Like its name, the Grand Lux Cafe is a place of luxury, flair, style, great atmosphere, and delightful dishes that will have you raving about the place to all your friends. First opened in 1999 in The Venetian Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, the restaurant is continuously reinventing itself to give customers a unique experience. But is this place for everyone? Are vegans considered? And what are the vegan options at Grand Lux Cafe?
The Grand Lux Cafe offers a vast menu. It’s meticulously crafted and often revised to accommodate all types of palates. The list of items makes it a culinary world tour that will have most of us salivating in anticipation. But as you flip through the endless number of pages, you quickly notice that a vegan section isn’t available.
It looks like you’ll have to find your perfect dish the old-fashioned way. There’s always a way for vegans to find something to eat almost anywhere, yet some places make it easier than others. This article will demonstrate that the Grand Lux Cafe may have to revise its menu to see the number of vegan customers walking through their fancy doors increase.
Knowing if a place is right for a specific person’s dietary choices is never easy. If you’re a vegan trying to find out if you should bother with this place, a thoughtful person looking out for a vegan family member or friend, or curious about what vegans have to go through before they walk into a restaurant, this article is for you. Read on to find out if the Grand Lux Cafe is the right choice for vegans.
Background
To find out what a place is all about, I find it beneficial to learn something about its mission and beginnings. It all begins with The Cheesecake Factory. With over 200 locations worldwide, it’s a name that you should recognize.
Even though the restaurant isn’t named in a vegan fashion (it’s the cheese part), it’s a massive corporation with locations from LA to Shanghai. The place is known to be family-oriented and rather casual in style. That’s one of the reasons why David Overton, CEO, and chairman of The Cheesecake Factory, designed the Grand Lux Cafe.
He wanted to incorporate what he had observed as he traveled worldwide, studying culinary and architectural designs. Years of preparation gave birth to what is now a symbol at The Venetian Hotel and eight other locations across the USA. The result is an upscale casual dining experience that offers international cuisine with an ambiance of pure class.
Concept
The concept of this restaurant is to offer quality food and service in a lavishly decorated place. The kitchen cranks out Asian taco ribs, Latin-style empanadas, Indo-Chinese crispy fried chicken, American-style BBQ, a vast selection of tapas, the freshest seafood, certified Angus steaks, and many more non-vegan options. But fear not; they have salads, soups, and desserts that could be an excellent alternative to the animal products listed above.
In short, the concept is to take dishes from around the world, prepare them with world-class cooking techniques, and serve them in a lavish setting. So far, so good? Keep reading; it gets better.
The Menu
This is the section of the article that you’ve been looking forward to. You already know that Grand Lux Cafe menu is enormous, but you’re still wondering if it can accommodate vegan diets. Let’s look at each section of the menu to give you an overview of what you should order if you eat at the Grand Lux Cafe.
Starters
To begin your meal, you can choose from 24 options. However, you’ll be saddened to know that only one of the 24 possibilities seems to be vegan. One out of 24 is not the best statistic, but let’s see if they just forgot to include vegans in their starter section. Either way, it reduces your choices, making ordering easier. You shall have:
- Mini Lux Salad (baby greens, tomatoes, and garlic croutons)
You should ask about the croutons since butter can be added for extra flavor. If that’s the case, freight not, you can have the baby greens and tomatoes.
Salads
Salads are a vegan’s bread and butter (sort of speak). The salad section of a menu can be the key for vegans to have a decent meal when there are no other options. You will be able to choose from 13 salad options. That’s a pretty good selection, superb!
Alas, you’ll be surprised to find out that only one salad passes the vegan lie-detector test. You may remove certain ingredients to “make it vegan,” but that’s a given in most situations. So, here is your salad choice:
- Kale And Warm Grains Salad (kale, butter lettuce, dates, apple, toasted pumpkin seeds, crispy chickpeas, and lemon dressing over warm quinoa and farro)
Even though the Kale And Warm Grains Salad look appetizing, the fact that your choices are narrowed down to one isn’t remarkable.
Pasta & Pizzas
None of the options are vegan. They all contain cheese, cream sauce, meat, or seafood. Well, at least you’ll be able to reduce your carb intake.
Burgers & Sandwiches
Again a section you can rule out. None of the options are vegan. They offer a veggie burger, but it’s served with thousand island sauce containing mayonnaise made with eggs. If you choose to go with this burger and ask to “make it vegan” by removing the sauce, ask how the patty is made. It’s common for vegetarian patties to be made with eggs to keep the patty together. Remember that vegetarian does not mean vegan.
Grand Casual Cuisine
None of the items listed are vegan. Every dish in this section has meat or seafood in its title. At least it makes it straightforward for vegans that none of these grand dishes are suitable. The next section is called Steaks and Seafood — no need to go into details about this one. Let’s just say that each item is true to its section’s name.
Sides
This might be where you’ll find the most options. Yes, vegans may have to look at the sides to create a meal at the Grand Lux Cafe. Choose from:
- French fries
- Sweet potato fries
- Broccoli
- Green beans
- Fresh spinach
- Asparagus
- Sauteed mushrooms
- Steamed white rice
- Brown rice
That’s a good number of sides to choose from, don’t you think?
Lunch Specials
The only option available is the salad or soup of the day. Be sure to ask about the broth used to make the soup, and always remember to ask about the ingredients that compose the dressing.
Weekend Brunch
This entire section is composed of meat, eggs, and dairy. The only chance you have to get a vegan option is to look at the extras section. Ask about the bagels. They’re likely made with eggs, but there is a slight chance that they made it vegan. Or is there?
Desserts
Ah, finally, the best section on any menu! Sorry to all my vegans, you won’t have a dessert here. No options are available for vegans.
A Place for Vegans?
Unless you’ve decided to check out the marble floors, cozy leather seats, and hand-blown chandeliers, I don’t think the Grand Lux Cafe is for you. It offers too few “vegan” dishes to consider it a vegan-friendly place. The amount of animal products carried around the restaurant is an unwelcoming thought.
Conclusion
If you’re vegan or care about someone vegan, do not choose the Grand Lux Cafe. It may offer great dishes and a whimsical atmosphere, but it does not consider vegan diets. The majority of vegan options are found on the sides section of the menu. The salads are out of reach unless you request a heavy modification to your order.
In short, the Grand Lux Cafe places vegans aside when it comes to offering options for everyone.
