Legendary Taiwanese Soup Dumplings Are Hitting Las Vegas

This is a food lover’s present far better than any Santa has in his sleigh. Come 2020, Vegas xiao long bao fans can stop pilgrimaging to Los Angeles for their favorite delicate-skinned treasures full of warm Kurobuta pork and stock—Din Tai Fung is coming to town. 

The prolific restaurant will take root in the former Aria Cafe in the Aria Resort & Casino on the Vegas Strip, where it will form a trifecta of casual culinary powerhouses with the Cosmopolitan (Blue Ribbon, Beauty & Essex, Ghost Donkey, Eggslut, Pok Pok Wing, Milk Bar) and the Park MGM (Eataly, Crack Shack, The NoMad, Best Friend). Aria, also an MGM resort, currently doesn’t yet boast the hip, casual restaurants that its two neighbors do—looks like it’s trying to catch up.

An open kitchen will provide guests with the opportunity to see Din Tai Fung’s famously thin-skinned dumplings being folded and stuffed, and other essential elements of the menu will be served, including their famous spicy noodles, minced pork noodles, wontons, steamed buns, and noodle soups. Will they offer the black truffle soup dumplings served at DTF’s Shanghai location? Only time will tell, though for Vegas’s luxury ingredient-leaning crowd it seems like a sure bet.

Din Tai Fung’s presence has steadily been expanding in the West, to the delight of its fans, many of whom are willing to wait hours for a table. A new location opened in Portland in December 2018, and stalwart locations sprawl across Southern California, including the original Los Angeles location in Arcadia. Northern California has only one spot in Santa Clara, leaving San Francisco barren of DTF joy, but Washington boasts four locations. The rest of the United States will have to wait in vain for their on-brand soup dumplings, while the West, along with London, Dubai, Shanghai, Taipei, and other cities across the world, enjoy the spoils of 18 perfect folds gathered around the world’s tiniest bowls of soup.