Los Angeles mainstay Gjelina, the sustainably minded produce-forward restaurant that’s powered Venice’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard since 2008, will open its Las Vegas location at the Venetian on December 26.
Gjelina, led by founder Fran Camaj, is a unicorn of an L.A. destination that’s influenced its city’s scenester-chic culinary scene more than any food truck, Erewhon smoothie or Gwyneth Paltrow-approved pasta. With its unfussy top-tier cooking, crowd-pleasing pizzas and seasonal vegetable dishes that might change daily, Gjelina has always defied trends while creating its own. For example, all the reclaimed wood at Gjelina’s L.A. location has clearly influenced countless restaurants, to the point that Camaj mostly avoided reclaimed wood for his Vegas buildout.
The Venetian outpost will be the third Gjelina. (Earlier this month, Camaj reopened New York’s Gjelina, which originally debuted in 2023, became wildly popular during the daytime and then shuttered after a fire that occurred before the restaurant had even offered dinner service.) The Vegas Gjelina is also part of a $1.5 billion makeover at the Venetian, which the resort has said is the biggest and priciest hotel renovation in history. But as usual, Camaj and chef Juan Hernandez will focus on maintaining the Gjelina ethos. That means constantly going to L.A. farmers markets, including the unrivaled Santa Monica market, and sourcing the best ingredients.
“There will be frequent pick-ups and drives that need to happen from the Santa Monica farmers market directly to Vegas,” Camaj tells Observer. He anticipates that there will be California produce heading to the new Gjelina two to three times per week.
Along with wood-fired pizzas and housemade charcuterie, Gjelina’s Vegas dinner menu will feature seasonal vegetable dishes like kabocha squash with miso glaze, pomegranate, walnut and mint pistou; and roasted beets with horseradish yogurt, sherry vinegar, pistachio flour and dill. Comforting main dishes will include orecchiette with beef cheek Bolognese and a striped sea bass stew with black mussels and asari clams. The lunch menu will have the same vegetable dishes and pizzas available at dinner while also offering sandwiches like a grilled hanger steak banh mi with pickled vegetables, cilantro and horseradish aioli alongside hearty soups like one with butternut squash, farro, black kale and chermoula.
With 200-plus seats, the Vegas Gjelina is almost twice the size of the L.A. original. And unlike in Venice, guests can pair their vegetables and pizzas with cocktails instead of just beer and wine. But overall, Gjelina remains Gjelina. Camaj and Hernandez aren’t thinking about dramatic menu changes or a different vibe. Camaj knows that guests in Vegas are often looking to celebrate and have a baller experience, but they’ll have to go elsewhere for caviar bumps or sparklers or liquid nitrogen or a tableside martini cart. Maybe they’ll be able to get a big steak, though.
“At Gjelina, for the holidays, there have been some events where we’ve had a porterhouse or a tomahawk or something significant, protein-wise, that was $170 or $190,” Camaj says. “It’s been, obviously, on very rare special occasions. In Vegas, there are people that are looking for that type of meal, and I’m sure we’ll be providing that a little more regularly than just a few times a year.”
Patrick Nichols, CEO of The Venetian, also stresses that his resort isn’t trying to change the essence of Gjelina.
“We love the concept as is,” Nichols tells Observer. “ For folks that want to splurge, there will be that opportunity. There’s always that customer in Vegas that wants to do that. But the Gjelina that’s coming to the Venetian will be very, very familiar to folks who’ve dined at Gjelina in L.A. One thing that makes Fran special is that he’s so committed to what he’s created. What’s made him a great partner along the way is he knows what he wants, and we’re here to help deliver that.”
Gjelina is part of a dining upgrade at the Venetian bringing in heavy hitters from all over the country. Next summer, the resort’s new Via Via food hall will debut with anchors including New York’s Scarr’s Pizza, L.A.’s Howlin’ Ray’s and New Orleans’ Turkey and the Wolf. Then, in the third quarter of 2025, Simon Kim’s Cote (born in New York and expanded to Miami and Singapore) and Bazaar Meat by José Andrés (relocating from the Sahara in Vegas) will open at the Venetian.
“I think there’s some familiarity that people love when they come to Las Vegas,” Nichols says. “These are brands that they know and that they can trust. Gjelina falls firmly into that category. It’s an L.A. staple. … I’ve been eating there for well over a decade, and there’s just something about how the whole package comes together for Gjelina. It’s relaxed. It’s refined. The food is amazing. It’s always a bustling scene.”
The Venetian, of course, already has some of the world’s most renowned chefs, including Wolfgang Puck, Thomas Keller and Tetsuya Wakuda. Now it’s adding new energy with the type of restaurants that attract surfers and galbi-crushing party people and hypebeasts who clamor for limited-edition shoe collabs from their favorite restaurants (this is something that both Scarr’s and Howlin’ Ray’s have released).
“I think it’s about having that entire collection,” Nichols says. “I think we’re going to expose the Venetian customer to an entirely different demographic of food and beverage at the food hall. It’s about creating this really cohesive experience at the Venetian.” This, ultimately, is why Camaj and Gjelina are here.
“The biggest reason for what made me feel more comfortable with it was the overall commitment and investment that Patrick and the Venetian were making into revamping the entire resort,” Camaj says. “We felt very comfortable with their commitment to ensure that our sourcing was going to be as consistent as it is here in L.A.”
It’s funny how things play out: 2008 was a watershed year for Los Angeles dining. Along with Gjelina, Roy Choi’s Kogi truck, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo’s Animal and the Bazaar by José Andrés all opened in L.A. and changed the food game in their own ways. Choi and Andrés now also have a strong presence in Las Vegas, while Shook and Dotolo have turned down offers from casinos. All these brands have influenced so much, but they’ve done it by largely ignoring everything around them and just creating their own path.
“That’s a great question,” Camaj replies when asked if he ever thought that Gjelina was part of a movement that started in 2008. “It’s never been asked. As truthful as I can be, I’ve lived in Venice since the mid-’90s. I’ve lived within a half mile of Gjelina the entire time. I’m still there. The property there, my girlfriend turned wife and I lived in the space for two years prior to construction. I was very much, maybe even to a fault, living in my own universe right on Abbot Kinney.” Sometimes, though, the desire to not change is what makes you stand out.
“We’re still not going to modify or substitute any of our dishes,” Camaj says of the Vegas Gjelina. “But we’re very confident we can do a tomahawk or a porterhouse, and we have for 16 years, in a very Gjelina way.”
