GOING to Las Vegas for its food used to be like going to Tehran for a hens' party. The home of cold beer and dirty girls didn't do restaurants. It did all-you-can-eat buffets and 99-cent hot dogs to keep the newlywed and the nearly dead at the twittering fruit machines day and night.

But as Sin City sheds its glitz 'n' tits image and heads upmarket, it has begun to attract some of the best chefs from around the world. Last year, more new restaurants opened in Nevada than in any other American state, and Las Vegas now has 15 master sommeliers - that's 14 more than Los Angeles.

He flies in fresh fish from all over Italy and serves it just like mamma used to make. His squid ink risotto ai frutti di mare, oven-baked Mediterranean snapper with artichokes and fresh Italian oregano, with basil ice-cream for dessert is, for me, the best Vegas has to offer.

Bartolotta is leading the charge of European cuisine in Vegas. Hot on his heels are two French master chefs - Joel Robuchon, who taught Gordon Ramsay how to cook, and Alain Ducasse of Hotel de Paris fame. Robuchon has stolen the thunder from Picasso restaurant in the Bellagio to create the richest - in every sense of the word - French fine dining in Vegas.

In a belle epoque-style dining room he serves up a 16-course tasting menu, from $US525 ($693) for two. Osetra caviar with green beans and lemon grass, roasted turbot with celery and black truffle, and passion fruit souffle with sage sorbet are as good as anything in a three-Michelin-star Parisian restaurant.

Alain Ducasse's restaurant, Mix, in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, has a head start over its competitors. It is the only hotel in Las Vegas that is not a themed resort. You don't have to walk past grannies taking gondolas to the Gap to get to your table. Better still, it has the best view of the strip of any bar or restaurant in the city.

At Mix, the menu is French or American. The pepper-dusted tuna two ways with lentils and prosciutto, bison tenderloin sauce au poivre, and Mix Candy Bar dessert complement the outlook. Best of all are the fresh madeleines, which are served off a piping hot baking tray with coffee.

But Americans are not surrendering it all to cheese-eating Europeans. The best US chefs now serve up a crash course in modern American. At bistro-style Bouchon in the Venetian, Thomas Keller, he of French Laundry (California) and Per Se (New York) fame, offers bread with Vermont butter, a dozen types of oyster, mussels from Maine, lamb from his favourite farm in Pennsylvania and American artisan cheeses.

At Sea Blue in the MGM Grand, San Francisco-based chef Michael Mina's specialties are tasting menus of American fish and shellfish under five headings: Raw, Marinated, Kebab, Steamed and Fried. The cucumber yoghurt, watercress dumpling and warm oyster is modern American fusion cuisine at its best.

Bradley Ogden in Caesar's Palace runs Sea Blue a close second with his Calm Cove oysters five ways, Hamachi sashimi and seared diver scallops with crispy bacon.

Restaurants Fix in the Bellagio and Stack in the Mirage may not offer the haute cuisine of the big-name chefs but they deliver the kind of energetic atmosphere and service that make you feel like you are in your own version of hit Vegas movie Swingers.

In the city of chance, one thing you can be sure of these days is eating well. But watch the bottom line as closely as your waist line - Vegas restaurants are not cheap. However, if you are feeling lucky, you can always take a gamble and flip a coin to see who pays the bill.

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