Yes, like his recently retired Bally's colleague Fluff LeCoque, who'd been with Jubilee! in some capacity since it opened more than three decades ago, maitre d' Ilario Pesco has indeed greeted and seated his final guests, after a career that stretched back to 1973, when Gigi's debuted in what was then called the MGM Grand (renamed Bally's after the fateful fire of 1980). In a town renowned for its lack of permanence, both of these characters stood out as being among the few remaining tenuous links to the Las Vegas of yore, when ladies dressed for dinner and their dates would never have contemplated wearing shorts or flip flops anywhere other than at the pool.
While Gigi's closed to become Seasons, which in turn closed in 2001 and is now used as occasional meeting space, Pesco transitioned to each new incarnation, also weathering the closure of Al Dente, where he subsequently plied his trade, to his final role at the helm of Bally's Steakhouse, home to the famed Sterling Brunch. The names and the menus may have changed over time, but Pesco is a believer in continuity and many of his staff members had been with him for years, even decads. "In my business, if you believe in what you do, you do well," he remarked in an interview earlier this year, prior to his retirement. "The restaurant is like a picture: If the chef is not there, the manager is not there, then you change the picture. So, I try to keep the picture the same. What it takes doesn’t matter—the show must go on." For those of you already missing Pesco's presence, these words evidently ring true.
In the span of his epic career, Ilario's guests included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Tom Jones, not to mention hundreds (thousands?) of less well-known guests, upon whom he seems to have made a consistently good and enduring impression, with an unfailing attention to detail, like personally handing a rose to each female diner back in the Seasons days, when the restaurant even had a specialty coffee named for him. (The Caffe Ilario was a flaming drink prepared tableside, containing coffee, khalua, cognac, and cinnamon, we understand.)
Consistently delivering service that went above and beyond was Ilario's whole credo. "I live for my customers. If they don’t come to this restaurant, I am nobody and that’s what I believe in." We read one review by a fan who described him as nothing less than "the soul of the Sterling Brunch."
Now that he no longer needs to live for his customers, we hope that Ilario Pesco has found something else to live for. We can confirm that he's active on Facebook, so we sent a message inquiring as to what he's up to these days, but hadn't heard back by the time this answer went live. If we're lucky enough to get a response, we'll pass it on as an "Update". (An inquiry through Bally's yielded confirmation that he had indeed retired, but nothing more.) If anyone out there has any additional information, please drop us a line.
Image appears courtesy of Beth Poppe and the Las Vegas Sun.
