One of the most highly anticipated restaurant debuts in Las Vegas for 2026, from one of the city’s most honored chefs in recent years, who sends out some of the most compelling food found anywhere in town, is — finally — taking place Thursday evening, in a quiet corner of Chinatown.
Aroma Latin America Cocina from chef Steve Kestler, a James Beard Award finalist in 2024, whose restaurant ranks among the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Top 100 for 2024 and 2025, is reopening on Spring Mountain Road at the eastern edge of Chinatown, five months after closing the original Aroma in Henderson.
Since debuting in late 2021 on North Green Valley Parkway, Aroma has garnered praise for Kestler’s creative communion of his Latin American heritage, his classical training and his embrace of global accents, especially Asia. Customers arrived from across the valley. But many didn’t like the drive to deep Henderson.
“The regulars would always say, ‘It’s so far,’” Kestler said.
The chef began considering a move to a more central location, one that would be more convenient for more customers. As the end of Aroma’s lease in Henderson approached last fall, Kestler settled on the Chinatown space, 3355 Spring Mountain Road, Suite 35, that was previously occupied by Tres Cazuelas (where Kestler once worked for a few months about a decade ago).
The chef said he was excited about Aroma’s new location. The Sand Dollar Lounge lies next door. Some of his favorite restaurants — Amador Cocina Fina, Partage, Sparrow + Wolf, Rincón de Buenos Aires, Raku, ShangHai Taste — are in Chinatown, a neighborhood that attracts adventurous diners.
“People that want to try different things. People that are not expecting chips and salsa,” Kestler said. “I feel I can experiment more here.”
New dishes, menu classics
The original Aroma served lunch and dinner, dividing the menu into starters, tacos, mains and sweets. In Chinatown, the restaurant initially offers dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays, with lunch introduced about two weeks later, on the same days.
The menu is now partitioned into four sections whose dishes draw on Mexican, Central American, South American and Caribbean cooking. Frequent customer questions about the origins of dishes prompted the reorganization.
The menu presents some new dishes, including pepian negro, a stew from Kestler’s native Guatemala. Kestler’s spin on the dish features duck confit, the meat cooked in its own fat for four hours, and a tamalito de chipilin. This vegetarian bite-sized tamal uses masa mixed with leaves from chipilin, a wild Central American herb whose distinctive flavor is sometimes described as a mix of spinach, clover and green beans.
“It’s a 500-year-old recipe from Guatemala. It was a ceremonial Mayan dish,” Kestler said. “The kings would eat it with meat, regular people with vegetables. In Guatemala, chipilin is mostly used in savory dishes, but I used to do some with ice cream, and it’s fabulous.”
What the chef called Aroma classics remain on the menu in Chinatown: Peruvian ceviche with leche de tigre and yellowtail; beef lomo saltado Nikkei, a Peruvian-Japanese fusion dish; beef short ribs with mole; and more.
Late-night grill
The new Aroma is roughly the same size as in Henderson but with a different layout. A vibrantly colored mural of a woman wearing a sacred jaguar mask lies to the left of the entrance; the open kitchen lies straight ahead.
Around the corner, the dining room is populated with banquette tables for two, tables for four and a big table for 10. Alebrijes, the brightly painted Mexican folklore figures, and small wood-burning braziers, called braseros, are arranged like a frieze across a stone-clad wall.
Kestler said he would install a firepit and grill on the terrace and open it around the end of the summer, when the weather begins to cool.
“I’m going to do Argentinean asado style: sausage, cuts of meat, lechones. I’m going to do a late-night grill, small quick bites. You’re having a drink at the tiki bar, then you come over for a steak sandwich.”
Contact Johnathan L. Wright at [email protected]. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.