In this casual, conversational video, hosts Josh and Rachael Fillbrandt explore Lucchini, an Italian restaurant located inside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. They walk through the menu, noting price points for appetizers ($16‑$24), salads, pizzas, side dishes ($14), pastas ($26‑$39), and a high‑end seafood fra diavolo ($95). They highlight the cocktail menu, especially a $25 spritz flight featuring cucumber, strawberry, and peach variations, and mention an extensive wine list with a $2,388 bottle. The hosts comment on the venue’s loud, dark, nightclub‑like atmosphere, its affiliation with the Tao Group, and a personalized anniversary card they received. They sample several dishes: a cheese‑heavy “Spadini” appetizer, a spicy Diavolo pizza with hot soppressata and honey, burrata (or ricotta) ravioli in marinara, a rock‑shrimp Calabrian Alfredo featuring spicy ’nduja, and a lasagna pinwheel with short rib. They discuss texture, flavor, heat, and cheese levels, offering praise for the pizza, the shrimp pasta, and the complimentary vanilla soft‑serve gelato with chocolate shavings, while noting drawbacks such as overly heavy bread, bland or overcooked noodles, and a lack of texture in the lasagna. The video concludes with a balanced verdict: Lucchini provides solid mid‑tier Italian fare—better than chain restaurants but not as upscale as high‑end Vegas venues—making it a worthwhile stop for a reasonably priced, lively Italian dining experience in Vegas.
Chapters
Hey everybody, I'm Josh.
And I'm Rachael.
And we are suckers for Italian restaurants.
We are.
And we found another one.
Lucchini here at MGM Grand. Let's go.
All right, welcome to Lucchini. A beautiful venue. You can see over here the appetizers. are around $16 up to $24. There's salads, pizzas. Definitely gonna try to get at least one pizza, I bet. Side dishes are $14 apiece, which is pretty standard, it feels like, or at least on the low end, maybe compared to like steakhouses.
Yeah.
Pastas, you're looking at $26 to $39. Oh my God, seafood fra diavolo, $95. I don't think we'll go that route. Probably stick around some of the cheaper ones.
House specialties.
That's gonna be your entrees, $34.
Thank you.
And then they do have steak.
Okay.
Cowgirl, how's that drink menu looking?
Well, they have a cocktail menu here, drinks from $20 to $24, but what's interesting is they have a spritz flight of 3 of them for $25.
Okay.
So you can try 3 different spritzes. I think that's probably what I'm gonna try. And they have a pretty extensive wine list.
Nice.
I saw a bottle on here for $2,388. Not $23, $2,388.
I'm gonna pass on that. And I did say cowgirl because we're going to a concert tonight.
That's true, and I have cowboy boots on today. That's true, yeah. We're celebrating our anniversary today in Vegas, so we got a nice little card and it's personalized. Yeah, I think that's really cool. That's just a nice little touch. We did it at Sinatra too, one for your birthday.
I think that's just fun.
Yeah, and I didn't realize that they're part of the Tao Group.
I didn't either. First up, I want to say it was called something Spadini.
Yeah, the waiter or the gentleman who just brought it out said it's like an Italian grilled cheese. Yeah, and also there is a lot of cheese on there.
There is. And I will say, we do have microphones and this place is loud.
It's busy too, and it's dark.
It's busy.
Yeah.
Okay, finally got the cheese pull out of there.
Holy Moses, so much cheese!
It looks Looks delicious though.
Yeah.
You're not gonna pick it up?
No. Nice toasted, I can already feel it.
Also right here, Rachael got a spritz flight. So you can see there's a cucumber one.
Very cheesy, very good. You can get some garlic in there, but you can really taste the toast on that bread. Man, that's tasty. That is so good.
So just like garlic butter cheese.
Garlic butter cheese. There's some kind of sauce too, but I'm not sure what it is. This is what's the overpowering taste, and it's wonderful.
I love it. Frits flights.
Yeah, so we have a strawberry-infused one and then one that's also got lemon, and let me double-check, peach, and then the cucumber.
Cucumber. They look really cute.
I'm gonna try the cucumber one first. I love the presentation.
And they do have full-size ones, and so this is just a miniature version of the 3 of them.
Oh man, you should try that.
That's good?
Yeah, it's nice and fresh and cucumbery. Oh.
Well, I have my own drink over here. This is like a strawberry basil Lemon martini.
Yeah.
You can see the sugar on the rim. It's probably a bit sweet, I'm sure. How you doing over there?
Oh, that's the peach lemon one. Okay, so this pink one is the strawberry, then you have the peach and the cucumber.
That's cool.
I like the strawberry and the cucumber ones the best. The peach one's a little strong on the gin flavor for me, but otherwise really tasty.
All right, pizza time. When we see a spicy pizza, we're gonna We're gonna probably get it. So that's what we went with right here. I think it's a Diavolo.
Yep.
So a hot soppressata, which is like a salami.
Yeah.
Um, did he say honey?
Yep, a hot honey, I believe, on there. Maybe it's just honey and cheese.
It's a good-looking crust.
Yeah.
I like that I can hold it.
I'd say it's thin and not floppy. That's nice. I was worried by looking at the outside of the crust that it was a little gonna be thick, but it just— it doesn't look like that.
No, it's nice and thin. That's a good pizza.
Is it good?
I really like it. Not not too hot. I think the guy said it was decent heat, but I don't I don't think it's too hot. I can take some heat though.
Okay.
But I think it's a good pizza. The good good good chew on the crust.
I love that it's not floppy. I really like that. Is there enough cheese on there? I mean, they did do freshly grated.
Probably not for you. Yeah. But we love a lot of cheese.
Yeah.
And we had a lot of cheese on the bread. So maybe it'll even out.
All right. Two pieces into the pizza.
And I will say that there is a little— there's more heat than I initially was expecting.
There's a kick to it.
Yeah, but it's still— it's not enough that like I can't handle it.
Definitely not. And I will say, um, for the flight of the spritzes, the strawberry and the cucumber by far my favorite. This one has gin in it. I'm not gonna finish that.
Yeah, I don't really like that one either.
It was not good.
Um, my drink is very good, very easy drinker. It's, you know, strawberry lemonade. Yeah, it's exactly That's exactly what it tastes like.
It's so hot too. Yeah, it's good.
All right, that is an interesting presentation for ravioli. Cut your own ravioli.
It is interesting. It's a burrata ravioli, burrata spinach.
I think ricotta.
I think ricotta as well. And it is in a red sauce.
Marinara, which initially when you said it, I was like, that just sounds like cheese ravioli.
It is cheese ravioli, Josh. But the pasta is really well done and not well done like overdone. It's cooked well. It's al dente. It's perfectly cooked.
Good flavor. I love the flavor It's nice and creamy.
That pasta stands out. It's simple, but it's really good. Sometimes I think when you can do simple done right, it's perfect. That marinara sauce too, like, I wish we had a fried mozzarella stick to dip in it.
Right?
It's kind of what we need. But otherwise, a very, very good choice to start off with.
Starting off here in the middle, we've got— it's like rock shrimp Calabrian Alfredo.
Yeah.
I like the look of the noodles. They look like It looks like they're those ones that look like, uh, like a lasagna noodle.
Yeah, it looks really good.
Yeah.
He did say this one is spicy.
He did, because there's 'nduja in it.
Yeah. I was expecting a more white Alfredo sauce more than the—
Not if there's 'nduja though.
That's true.
It's gonna be the red.
Yeah.
I think it's really good. It kind of picked up really loud in here.
It got really loud in here.
Yeah, I think I already mentioned it, like, well, Rachael noticed that apparently this is with the Tao Group.
Yeah.
So know that going in. is a nightclub kind of thing.
I don't feel that the music's loud, there's just a lot of people.
I think it's loud in all ways. Yeah, yeah. Um, and it's also a bit darker, so if you're not into that kind of scene, you might not be into this. This is definitely a bit easier than, say, Cathedral or Sam's Social Prime.
True.
But it's not your typical venue, know that going in.
I'm excited to try that one. It kind of looks like it's a little cheesy too.
No, I freaking love it actually.
Okay, good, because that was the one you were a little hesitant to order.
I actually didn't want to order it, but now I love it and I think we'll finish it without a doubt.
Good. Now what did you get over here? Because that looks awesome.
Yeah, so this is a lasagna pinwheel with short rib.
Short rib, people, not hamburger. Yeah, or ground beef. It is truly short rib. I saw it when Josh was checking it out. Oh, it's got some cheese in there too.
There's a lot of cheese, thankfully.
Oh man.
All right, this is gonna be a big bite.
That is gonna be a big bite.
Messy bite.
Oh, I love that you have cheese pull on that. It looks okay, so much cheesier than the last lasagna we had.
I know. No, this is good. Um, the noodles might be a little past their prime.
Like overdone?
Slightly overdone. Like there's not a ton of bite to them.
You can see that around the edge there.
Okay.
That it might be.
Yeah, there's a little crispy there, but like I'm talking about like in the middle parts.
Oh, okay. It's not the chew that you maybe Can I get with the al dente? Sure.
I think the short rib's good. It's, it's so shredded and so tender that like it doesn't add a ton of texture to it.
Oh, okay.
So that's where like talking about the noodle being maybe past, like there's not a lot of texture to this one.
Oh, okay.
Um, other than like the ooey gooey cheese though, it is good. It's cheesy. It's got lots of bold flavors.
What is the marinara?
I could go for a little texture though.
Okay.
The marinara is marinara.
Okay.
It's not— It's that thick. Nothing crazy. I'm not getting a ton of different change of flavor to it.
Okay.
All right. Probably about halfway through these entrees.
Yeah.
I'm gonna say, like, my opinion on this is it's a little too basic for me.
It is basic, especially the more you eat it.
Yeah, it's one of those where you don't want more than 6 pieces because it's all similar.
Yeah.
And that's okay if you're doing like a family style and you're just having one.
Yeah.
Good, good call. This easily the best.
Oh, hands down. That is some damn good pasta.
Yeah, I love, I love the ridges that you get from the pasta. I love the heat that you have. It's nice and creamy.
I was gonna say, I think the heat's the surprising part, and it shouldn't be, but it's the surprising really good part about this.
And then what did you think about the lasagna?
Well, I'm with Josh. When the cheese and the noodles have the same texture, it just kind of mushes in your mouth, and I don't like that about lasagna. I want to bite through lasagna. I almost like my noodles a little bit underdone.
Well, it's missing the ridges that you get on this one because you can see it's, it's just long It's just a—
yeah.
Pasta that is cut, and so it's missing that texture element. And so I don't know if it's overdone or if it's just not— it doesn't have the texture that you are thinking of with lasagna.
Now I do like the short rib because it is tender, like just a piece of the short rib by itself.
It is, but then that's where the problem comes in with the texture. It's very small shredded pieces that doesn't allow a bite.
So, um, I would definitely order the rock shrimp Alfredo again. Yes, that was delicious.
Yeah, if you're into spicy stuff, get that one. Yeah, there we go. For our anniversary, they gave us soft-serve gelato.
Yeah, vanilla, vanilla.
You can see some chocolate shavings on there. You want to try it for us?
Well, of course.
Oh man, is it good?
That's really creamy. That is delicious. Oh, that's gonna fill in all those spots that didn't have food.
Yeah, there's not a lot of them, but we're gonna do it.
It's a really strong Very strong vanilla, very creamy, cold but so silky smooth. Oh man.
Okay, good. And I think it's for free for our anniversary.
I think so too.
Which always tastes even better.
It does taste better that way.
Yes. All right, we just wrapped up here at Luccini and we found right behind us they've got like a pizza by the slice.
Yeah, I wish we would have known that last night.
Yeah, last night would have been good. But anyway, tonight I would say it's safe to say there were some hits and misses on our part. Agreed.
Like, start with the appetizers.
Yeah, I think the bread was good. It's very heavy though.
So heavy.
Very heavy. Yeah, um, but the pizza was great.
I did like the pizza.
And I would order the pizza again.
Agreed.
On the pasta side, we talked a bit more about those, and I would 100% get that Spicy shrimp pasta.
Yeah, it was so good.
Yeah, I, I was licking the bowl of that one.
Yeah, Josh is like, last bite's for you, and I left a couple pieces and he's like, we're not leaving that. Yeah, so he actually is not lying when we finished that entire bowl.
It's true. Yeah, and then, you know, it doesn't hurt to have some free ice cream at the end. So it was all in all, it was good. And I, I think the key to it is it fits a spot in Vegas that is missing Yeah. Which is more of a mid-tier price point.
Yeah, it was reasonably priced.
Yeah, this is— you're elevated. It's above Olive Garden. It's not exactly Sinatra at Wynn.
That's true.
So if you're looking for that mid-tier Italian place, I think it's worth a try.
And I really like the venue. I think it's very homey inside. It reminds me of an Italian restaurant. Like, it's just very cool.
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