Las Vegas Mixtape v38: Backstreet Thrills, A Grand Café, and Forever Blues

Track #2: Cafe Landwer @Boca Park

Things are forever changing in Vegas with so many restaurants opening and closing too. It was sad to recently see the hip Chinese eatery Chinglish at Boca Park shutter its doors, but in its wake comes the grand Café Landwer.

The food here (breakfast, lunch, dinner) is mainly Israeli and Mediterranean, with various pastas in the mix. The chicken Shawarma pita sandwich (with caramelized onions) and pasta verde (with broccolini, pumpkin seeds, and pesto, topped with a poached egg) were standouts on my first visit here.

For those who surrender to the pleasures of fried food, there’s the popular “Landwer’s Famous Schnitzel.” Keeping it ultra-healthy? Try the “Quinoa Lebanese” salad. Order it with the potent Turkish coffee and stay up for days. An impressive 10 desserts are served, including the “Oreo & Chocolate Rosalach”—bite-size rolled cookies with Oreo crumble, crème fraiche, ricotta cheese and white chocolate. Clearly, this is what to order when throwing caution to the wind.

The restaurant’s roots are showing. (Image: Vegas 411)

Cafe Landwer is a large visually captivating space—stylish and charming, too—with a big outdoor patio. The decor references the brand’s fascinating roots, which go all the way back to a 1919 coffeehouse in Berlin before it moved in 1933 (as the Nazi’s gained power) to Israel, where there are now 80 locations. In 2018, the franchise opened in America (Boston), followed by outposts in LA (Century City), Florida (Boca Raton, of course), and more, plus locations in Canada.