After winning season 13 of Top Chef, Jeremy Ford opened his farm-to-table restaurant Stubborn Seed in Miami Beach. Using produce from his own farm he created a rotating tasting menu based on seasonal ingredients that caught the attention of diners and food critics. In 2022, Stubborn Seed was awarded its first Michelin star.
Now, Ford is in Las Vegas offering a seasonal tasting menu at his Stubborn Seed sequel inside Resorts World. We dined there. Here’s what to expect.
The restaurant is twice the size of the Miami Beach location with seating for 130. Ford partnered with Celano Design Studio on the space, which includes a three-tiered circular chandelier hanging over the bar. You’ll also spot a crashing blue wave hand-painted on a curved canvas above the exhibition kitchen, where a team of chefs meticulously prepare Ford’s modern American fare.
Ford focuses on providing diners a vegetable-forward meal that mixes in proteins like salmon, Japanese yellowtail or Wagyu beef. He’s sourcing ingredients regionally and locally, including using Vegas-grown Desert Moon mushrooms. The dishes are all artfully plated. Edible flowers top certain dishes, as do airy foams, while swipes of sauces ring the plate on others.
Stubborn Seed opened in February with an eight-course winter tasting menu ($135 per person) that included sake and citrus cured Japanese yellowtail, uni panna cotta, and winter truffle ricotta gnudi with maitake mushrooms, buttery greens and crunchy pine nuts. The meal can be upgraded to the “elevated experience” ($175) with add-ons such as a kaluga caviar macaron and Hudson Valley foie gras and black truffle tart. A wine pairing can be added for $70.
A tight à la carte menu is available at the bar. Here guests can order some of those same tasting menu dishes individually or opt for items like Iberico ham fritters ($22), a Wagyu smash burger ($28) or barramundi with butter poached baby leaks ($33).
Equally impressive is Stubborn Seed’s beverage program. The restaurant’s signature cocktail is called the Kill Dill. It’s a fresh green cocktail that combines gin and the absinthe-like Dolin Génépy with cucumber, dill syrup and egg white. Other drinks are riffs on originals with Stubborn Seed’s version of the old fashioned using black tea-infused whiskey and a negroni featuring ancho chile liqueur.