Revel will get a taste of Italy this summer with the opening of Luke’s Kitchen and Marketplace. Featuring cuisine prepared by lauded chef Luke Palladino, Luke’s Kitchen and Marketplace is an 80-seat eatery serving up eclectic fare using fresh, seasonal ingredients. The space is inspired by an Italian apothecary and combines rustic and modern design features including dark woods and the chef’s signature black-and-white theme.
Luke’s Kitchen and Marketplace is a quick-service option for gastronomes who crave fresh food on the go from 6 a.m. until 2 a.m., seven days a week. Menu highlights include new takes on American favorites such as hotdogs, fried chicken, barbecued ribs and cheeseburgers as well as classic Italian recipes such as Nonna’s Meatballs served with Palladino’s famous New Jersey tomato sauce or crispy thin-crust pizzas cooked at 820 degrees. For those with a sweet tooth, Nutella-hazelnut éclair, ricotta zeppoles and rich cannolis are offered as dessert.
A specialty gourmet market will also offer salumi, a variety of specialty olive oils, aged balsamic vinegars, artisan fruit spreads, house-made pasta and beer and wine by the bottle available for takeaway.
Revel features more than a dozen restaurants from renowned chefs and restaurateurs who have a vested interest in Revel and bring their signature flair from their regional restaurants in New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. Strong entrepreneurial spirits and a tremendous talent to create gastronomic and lifestyle experiences are common threads among Revel’s partners.
Revel is a new destination for uncommon recreation. The beachfront resort is smoke-free and provides a new kind of gaming experience. Spanning 130,000 square feet, Revel’s casino incorporates more than 2,000 slot machines, nearly 100 table games, electronic tables and a Poker Room. The resort also includes more than 1,800 oceanfront hotel rooms, a dozen restaurants helmed by award-winning chefs and restaurateurs, a 32,000-square-foot spa, a well-curated collection of retail boutiques in The Row, and HQ Nightclub, a four-story nightclub which opens for a preview weekend on July 6-8, 2012.
In 1989, Luke Palladino was voted "most likely to succeed" by his classmates at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY. This prediction turned out to be true and the prophesy continues as he adds Luke’s Kitchen and Marketplace to his list of accomplishments.
"I decided early on that it was important to specialize in a specific cuisine and because of my heritage I wanted that to be Italian," said Palladino, who remembers family holidays as a procession of food with each relative's signature dish on a table. To ensure that his heritage was properly honored, Palladino enrolled in the CIA and dedicated himself to becoming an expert in the art of Italian cuisine. His training included four years of living and cooking in Italy.
From 1997 to mid-1998, Palladino was executive chef and partner at Venice's internationally celebrated Ristorante al Covo. "It was an incredibly intense experience because there were only three people in the kitchen — a dishwasher, a cook and me," he said. Prior to his time at al Covo, Palladino immersed himself in the culture of Italy's varied regions, spending time at restaurants in Rome, Piemonte, Puglia, Friuli, Sicily and Tuscany. Along the way, he struck up a friendship with Carlo Petrini, the president of Slow Food, an organization dedicated to combating the culture of fast food by preserving and passing down age-old culinary practices.
In the United States, Palladino has worked with some of the country's most respected chefs including Paul Bertolli, Jeremiah Towers, Emeril Lagasse and Todd English. He worked with English from October 1999 until May 2001, first as executive chef at Onda Ristorante at the Mirage in Las Vegas, where he crafted an innovative Italian menu that incorporated the lessons he'd learned in Italy, and then he opened the Aspen outpost of Olives as its chef de cuisine. In Aspen, Palladino was awarded "Best New Chef" by the Aspen Daily News.
Currently, Palladino operates a namesake 30-seat trattoria in Northfield, New Jersey which is hailed as "one of the most special dining experiences in South Jersey, and one of the best Italian restaurants in the entire region. Period,” according to Craig LaBan’s three-bell review in The Philadelphia Inquirer. He also owns and operates Luke Palladino Harrah’s in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
To start your Revel journey, visit www.revelresorts.com. To receive the latest updates on Revel, become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/revel and follow @revelresorts on Twitter. Revel is located on the Boardwalk at Connecticut Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
