Las Vegas Restaurant Sensi

Sensi offers a greater purpose to dining involving all five senses. The food and presentation from the four kitchens constantly evolves to produce innovative culinary creations from Chef Martin Heierling. The kitchen takes center-stage while four complementary cuisines: Italian, Asian, American, and seafood specialties take leading roles. Quality, purity and freshness prevail in every creation. Enjoy this truly unique style of dining complete with an impressive wine list and striking carved stone, waterfalls and mirrored chrome.

Martin Heierling

Executive Chef

Chef Martin Heierling has amassed an impressive culinary resume on his path to becoming executive chef at Bellagio’s Sensi. Sensi, featuring contemporary continental cuisine, takes guests on a culinary journey where cuisine from four corners of the world comes together in a contemporary setting.

Born in Heidelberg, Germany, and raised as a young adult in Auckland, New Zealand, Heierling knew from a young age that the culinary arts were his calling. After a three-year apprenticeship in Germany, he joined the team at the renowned Michelin Two Star restaurant Schwarzer Adler, performing an array of kitchen duties. Then it was off to Switzerland and the kitchens of Zurich’s acclaimed seafood restaurant Hummer & Austerbar, and as the chef tournant, Heierling learned his way around the kitchen, including the ever enticing pastry department. Heierling’s basic education was complete and after a required tour at age 18 in the German Navy, he excitedly embarked on his culinary career.

In 1993 at the age of 23, Heierling joined the Sheraton Hotel group in Auckland, followed by a position at the venerable Badrutt’s Palace in St. Moritz.

From there he set sail, literally, as one of the chief cooks on the opulent Royal Yacht Lady Moura, at the time the largest private yacht in the world. More of a landlubber, Heierling returned to Auckland as sous chef in the fine dining room, Partington’s, at the Sheraton Hotel Towers.

After eyeing a brochure describing Lespinasse as the ultimate in Four-Star New York City dining, Heierling contacted Executive Chef Gray Kunz, who not only hired the young cook, but who would become Heierling’s greatest culinary mentor. The lessons learned in this well-run kitchen would stay with Heierling forever.

His love of New Zealand beckoned and Heierling returned to the warm embrace of his family as well as the country’s food and culture. He took a position at the critically acclaimed Restaurant Essence, Auckland’s Best New Restaurant for 1998, where Heierling worked under New Zealand’s best known chef, Michael James. But Las Vegas called and European born and trained Heierling was on his way to the most luxurious resort ever conceived. Bellagio, Las Vegas’ first AAA Five Diamond resort and casino, became Heierling’s new family and Las Vegas became his new home.

At Sensi, Heierling’s approach to cooking – ingredient-driven dishes, eschewing overwrought drama for elegant simplicity – takes center stage.

Heierling is thrilled with the path his career has taken and credits his willingness to take culinary risks that brought him to where he is today.

Sensi has received a 2007 AAA Four Diamond Award and a 2007 Gayot.com 16-point rating out of a possible 20.