Restraint has no place at Eddie V’s Prime Seafood in Alpharetta

Eddie V’s Prime Seafood, the luxury steak and seafood restaurant in Alpharetta, is the most Las Vegas-coded restaurant I’ve ever visited that has nothing to do with Las Vegas. The 30-location chain, owned by Florida-based Darden Restaurants, doesn’t even have a Vegas outpost.

Even though there’s no direct link to Sin City, and I enjoyed multiple excellent experiences there, I somehow still managed to lose big.

During my recent meal at Eddie V’s, I ordered the 12-ounce Snake River Farms gold grade wagyu strip, the most expensive steak on the menu at $110. After eating a hunk myself and sharing it around the table, a solid 3-4 ounces remained. I made the pious decision to save the rest for another meal.

The polished, well-trained servers whisked away our leftovers and returned them packaged in a large bag. I didn’t consider checking through all the containers before we left; my steak (at least $30 worth) never made it back to me.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s that Eddie V’s is no place to practice restraint. This is a restaurant that encourages excess, complete with a windowless, crystal-encrusted dining room that would feel right at home attached to any upscale casino’s gambling floor. The name of the game here is big portions, big red wines and big prices. Go ahead and finish that steak.

If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, Eddie V’s won’t be worth it. No entree costs less than $40. But I enjoy a roll of the dice in Las Vegas every few years, so I could understand the appeal of a place like Eddie V’s, a different world that values decadence and indulgence over novelty or creative pursuit.

Eddie V’s also has a campy quality that will feel familiar to anyone who’s eaten at a casino restaurant. The place takes itself so seriously that it becomes funny.

Consider the cocktail list, titled “Cocktails with Attitude” and embellished with what reads like amateur poetry. It’s divided into four sections: Fortitude, Idealism, Decadence and Virtuous.

Each of those headings (three nouns and an adjective, by the way) received a further flourish. My favorite was Decadence, described as “romantic and indulgent.”

“To be an observer is to invite regret. Indulge, or wonder what could have been,” is the menu’s sage advice.

But Eddie V’s self-seriousness pays off when it comes to the most important aspects of the restaurant — the food and service. In the constellation of Darden brands, Eddie V’s is much closer to the Capital Grille than LongHorn or even Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

The menu is filled with familiar staples from the upscale steakhouse world, with a definite bent toward seafood. There are shellfish towers and caviar service, some Japanese-influenced items like spicy tuna crispy rice and yellowtail sashimi, and a list of oysters on the half-shell.

The seafood is uniformly high quality, something that was immediately apparent in the jumbo lump crab cake. Eddie V’s pulled an interesting trick with this stand-by dish that truly minimized the filler holding the large, succulent hunks of crabmeat together. The crab was pressed into a ring mold, then topped with seasoned breadcrumbs and broiled. The crisp, golden breadcrumb crust kept the crab cake in a perfectly circular shape until touched by a fork, at which point the crabmeat tumbled apart, no other filler to be seen.

That same delicate touch applied to entrees like the crab-stuffed shrimp, each one cooked to the perfect texture beneath more large hunks of crabmeat, and the Asian-inflected Chilean sea bass, a generous portion steamed in a soy broth until it nearly fell apart in large, beautifully tender flakes.

The steaks I tried demonstrated a touch less technique. The 10-ounce, center-cut filet mignon was extremely thick, making it difficult to cook to my dining partner’s desired medium temperature without overcooking the edges. The kitchen slightly undercooked the filet, shading in the direction of medium-rare, but cooked my longer, thinner wagyu strip slightly over the medium-rare temperature I ordered.

Both cuts of beef had excellent quality, though the filet was so impressive it made me second-guess my much more expensive piece of wagyu. At $59, the filet mignon was a significantly better value, with nearly as much flavor.

Though the big, expensive dishes were all hits during my visits, the food at Eddie V’s was not perfect. A side of steamed spinach was so lightly cooked and seasoned, it seemed almost untransformed from its raw state. And the bananas Foster butter cake was not worth the eye-popping calorie count; the cake itself was a bit tough and crusty, notwithstanding the fun pyrotechnic show of the tableside flambee. Another dish with a tableside show, the steak tartare, could have used a little more precise knifework.

The service at Eddie V’s was the restaurant’s true highlight, aside from that one costly leftovers mistake.

For every moment of my multiple long dinners before that, the service was excellent — attentive, polished and professional. Each visit, our white-jacketed primary servers were game to answer any questions and seemed supported by an army of secondary staff that bussed tables and kept water glasses topped up. Managers clad in suits roamed the dining room continuously but inconspicuously, ready to assist if needed. The staff clearly cared about our experience, and I left each dinner at Eddie V’s feeling coddled, an impressive feat in such a large, loud, busy restaurant.

Discovering that my leftovers were missing was a harsh dose of reality. But my disappointment in that moment is a testament to the atmosphere of Eddie V’s, a bubble of opulence that sits apart from everyday life.

3 out of 4 stars (excellent)

Food: seafood and steak

Service: polished, professional and exceedingly well-trained

Noise level: loud

Recommended dishes: jumbo lump crab cake, spicy tuna on crispy rice, jumbo shrimp cocktail, burrata and beet salad, warm goat cheese salad, Chilean sea bass, North Atlantic scallops, Parmesan sole, crab-stuffed shrimp, 10-ounce center cut filet mignon, crab-fried rice with mushrooms and scallions

Vegetarian dishes: creamy mashed potatoes, truffled macaroni and cheese, au gratin cheddar potatoes, grilled asparagus with lemon and salt, honey sriracha roasted Brussels sprouts with cashews

Alcohol: full bar with a few creative cocktails and a long wine list

Price range: $75-$200 per person, excluding drinks

Hours: 4-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 4-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Accessibility: fully ADA accessible, though the front doors are heavy

Parking: complimentary valet and free lot both available

Nearest MARTA station: none

Reservations: recommended, available through website

Outdoor dining: no

Takeout: yes

Address, phone: 11405 Haynes Bridge Road, Alpharetta. 770-870-1129

Website: eddiev.com