Tyler Vorce opened Lilli in Las Vegas's Chinatown on October 8, 2024, at 3616 Spring Mountain Road, Suite 101, inside the former Le Café Central French bakery. Lilli has a French Laundry-trained chef-owner, $98 and $188 menus, and a lounge for a lower-commitment first look (Eater) (Eater1).
Lilli is Vorce's first permanent restaurant, and the name comes from his three-year-old daughter. The format is tight: two tasting menus, a separate lounge with à la carte dishes, cocktails, and wines, and dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Lilli is an off-Strip French-leaning tasting-menu restaurant serving live scallops from Maine's Penobscot Bay and sole with Concord grapes from a chef who spent five years inside Thomas Keller's three-Michelin-starred French Laundry (Eater) (Eater1).
Why Lilli, the Las Vegas Restaurant, Belongs on Your Short List
Lilli gives Las Vegas Chinatown a fine dining French restaurant with a chef-owner's name on the door, not a hotel group concept. The restaurant sits on Spring Mountain Road, in a former French bakery space, rather than inside a casino dining room.
The price is also unusually clear for a debut with this résumé: $98 per person for four courses or $188 per person for eight courses. The four-course menu offers a shorter tasting-menu format. The eight-course menu includes the live Maine scallop dish and a French course progression (Eater).
Lilli is not a casual Chinatown grazing restaurant. Vorce classifies the cooking as "our version of French cuisine," and both prix fixe menus follow a French progression: amuse bouche, salad, fish, white meat, red meat, and dessert. The separate lounge solves the other use case. The lounge serves cocktails, wine, and à la carte food without the tasting menu.
The French Laundry Training Behind Tyler Vorce's Debut
Vorce's credential is specific enough to matter: he joined The French Laundry in 2012 and spent five years there, rising from commis to sous chef. That is the reason Lilli deserves attention beyond standard opening-week curiosity. A chef who worked through that kitchen's hierarchy brings habits around sourcing, prep, and repetition that usually show up in the small decisions: how seafood arrives, how long proteins are aged, and whether a garnish is there for flavor rather than decoration (Eater1).
Vorce also trained at Dovetail in New York, Troisgros, and Le Bristol Paris. Those names help explain why Lilli reads as French in structure without being locked into museum-piece French cooking. The source points are American and French at once: Penobscot Bay scallops, Hawaiian kanpachi, black cod, Liberty duck, China Ranch dates, and Pahrump produce all appear in the opening picture around a French menu rhythm.
The better comparison is internal: Lilli is not trying to reproduce The French Laundry in Las Vegas. It borrows the sourcing discipline from that chapter of Vorce's career and puts it into a smaller, chef-owned room on Spring Mountain Road. Lilli is Vorce's own permanent restaurant rather than a prestige-name import.
What to Order: Scallops, Sole, Duck, and the Wine List
The live scallop dish is a central opening-menu dish. Vorce sources scallops from Maine's Penobscot Bay, about an hour from where he grew up, and the restaurant shucks them to order. They are served with avocado mousse, white sturgeon caviar, and horseradish-sour apple granita. Vorce has said, "These scallops come from about an hour from where I grew up, so there's a personal connection for me," adding, "They're so sweet and tender that we want to preserve that quality."
The sole is the other decision point because it appears on both the four-course and eight-course tasting menus. Vorce's version of sole Véronique uses Concord grapes, tender lettuces, and sesame-brown butter emulsion rather than the classic creamy white wine sauce. The sole appears on both formats.
Opening-menu dishes also include Hawaiian kanpachi and black cod, both carried over from Vorce's residency at Durango Social Club. The duck pairing gives the wine list its most useful clue: a 2023 "Cep" Pinot Noir from Peay Vineyards with Liberty duck breast aged for two weeks, jujube purée, roasted radicchio, and foie gras-Port sauce. The pairing shows how the kitchen balances fruit, fat, bitterness, and sauce.
The wine list is compact and leans toward French and California producers. There is room to spend: the list includes a $500 white Burgundy from Domaine Pierre Morey and a $175 Littorai 2024 Savoy Vineyard Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley. The $175 Littorai fits a longer dinner built around fish, duck, and red meat (Eater1).
How the Sourcing Works in a Desert City
Vorce's sourcing story is not abstract. He drives to the airport two to three times a week to collect seafood shipments. For a Las Vegas restaurant serving live Penobscot Bay scallops, that detail matters more than a design adjective. The kitchen builds the menu around arrivals rather than holding prestige ingredients in the walk-in.
The nearby sourcing has a different shape. Flannery Beef supplies dry-aged flat iron steaks. China Ranch Date Farm provides dates used to finish chestnut and kale tortellini. Both are less than a two-hour drive from the restaurant. Green Life Produce in Pahrump delivers fruits, vegetables, and herbs harvested that morning. Those details give Lilli a Las Vegas-area spine rather than a menu that could be transplanted into any dining room with a caviar tin and a French saucebook.
This is also where Lilli separates itself from a generic tasting-menu opening. The seafood reaches the kitchen by air. The dates, produce, and beef connect the restaurant to the region around Las Vegas. The dining room is on Spring Mountain Road, next to Taco Stand, in a neighborhood better known to many diners for Asian restaurants than French prix fixe menus. The Spring Mountain Road address tests whether a chef with French Laundry and Troisgros training can make the location feel natural for French fine dining.
Book the Dining Room or Start in the Lounge?
The dining room carries the full tasting-menu format. The $188 eight-course menu gives Vorce more room to show the progression from seafood to meat to dessert. The $98 four-course menu is the sharper value play because it follows the formal structure without taking over the entire night.
The lounge serves diners who do not want a prix fixe dinner. The separate lounge offers à la carte dishes, cocktails, and wines, which makes it useful for an opening-month scouting visit. The lounge offers access to Lilli outside the tasting-menu format. For groups with mixed appetites, that flexibility matters.
Reservations are available through Resy, and dinner runs Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The address, 3616 Spring Mountain Road, Suite 101, puts Lilli in Chinatown rather than near the Strip's casino dining corridor, so plan it as a destination dinner. If you are pairing it with a full Las Vegas weekend, book Lilli on a night when you are not rushing between shows, because the tasting-menu format deserves the slower slot.
The move to watch next is whether Lilli turns opening interest into repeat regulars for the eight-course menu and the lounge. Vorce has the résumé, the $98 entry point, and the sourcing discipline; now the question is whether Las Vegas diners make Spring Mountain Road part of the city's French fine dining circuit.
