Antonio Nunez already had a knack for leaving his mark on Las Vegas restaurants when he decided to start his own. From STK at the Cosmopolitan to Le Cirque at Bellagio, Nunez’s Midas touch is evident. As partner and chef at Kitchen Table in Henderson, Nunez is igniting something rarely seen in the Vegas Valley: a suburban cult following.
“Generally, what I like to do [is] go in and try to get places opened,” Nunez says. “This is ours.” The “ours” refers to his business partner, Javier Chavez. Since opening last fall, their homegrown “social eatery” has become nothing less than a shining diamond in a sleepy strip mall, a neighborhood restaurant the neighbors can’t wait to get into.
“You go to LA, you go to Chicago, they have restaurants like this everywhere. Vegas does not have anything that does this,” Nunez says of Kitchen Table, which specializes in breakfast, lunch, brunch and baked goods—he recommends the chilaquiles and croque madame. “Chefs [with] our background, their heart and their ego lies in dinner. Everyone wants to do dinner, so why not go completely left field and do something that no one’s doing?”
Like everything else about the restaurant, the menu is a collaboration. Nunez says it’s “oddball and weird,” but Kitchen Table’s duality of flavors and personalities works. “I plan on doing chef collaborations all over town,” he says. “Building a brand of one-off restaurants that are built on two-sided chefs, so it’s always this dysfunctional function.” Kitchen Table, 1716 Horizon Ridge Parkway #100, 702-478-4782; Monday-Friday 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m., Sunday 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
