Hank's Fine Steaks & Martinis

The Restaurant

Hank's Fine Steaks & Martinis opened in 2001 inside Green Valley Ranch Resort & Spa, the original Station Casinos flagship in the Green Valley neighbourhood of Henderson, twenty minutes south-east of McCarran and a fifteen-minute drive from the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip. The dining room is the most carefully composed in Henderson: dark wood panelling, ruby-tufted leather banquettes, brass-finish chandeliers, an open exhibition kitchen at the back, and a centerpiece zinc-topped bar dressed for the property's signature martini programme. Seventy-eight covers across the main room and a private wine cellar that books up six weeks out for corporate dinners.

The kitchen is the only address in Henderson, and one of just seven in Nevada, certified by the Japanese Kobe Beef Association to serve Certified A-5 Japanese Kobe. The Kobe is offered by the ounce at a tasting-format price; the main programme is USDA Prime beef dry-aged in-house for a minimum of twenty-eight days. Signature cuts include the bone-in 18-ounce ribeye, the 8-ounce Kobe filet, the porterhouse for two, and a Wagyu burger that has its own bar-side following. The seafood programme runs Pacific king crab, oysters Rockefeller, and a Maine lobster tail that competes credibly with the resort kitchens up the highway.

The bar runs over thirty signature martinis prepared shaken or stirred, including the Vegas Vanilla, the Choco-tini, the Hank's dirty, and an Appletini that helped re-popularise the drink in the early 2000s. Live music plays nightly at the bar from 7:00 PM. The wine programme, assembled by an in-house sommelier, runs about three hundred references with a confident Napa Cabernet anchor, a Wine Spectator, award, level Bordeaux section, and a tightly chosen Italian and Spanish reserve list. The Kobe-ounces and the bottle list together push the senior business dinner to about $220 a head before negotiating any additional courses.