Martin Heierling

Vdara Hotel and Spa

Silk Road Restaurant

Executive Chef

Martin Heierling has amassed an impressive culinary resume on his path to becoming Executive Chef for Vdara Hotel & Spa – CityCenter’s luxury boutique hotel where desert-inspired décor and eco-aware design provide a soothing, non-gaming counterpoint to the non-stop excitement of Vegas.  His destination restaurant, Silk Road, takes travelers on an aromatic journey, with locally grown Mediterranean dishes enhanced by the flavors of the Silk Road’s exotic regions.  Heierling has also created the culinary programs for the hotel’s Bar Vdara and Sky Pool & Lounge.

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.  It was then off to Switzerland and the kitchens of Zurich’s acclaimed seafood restaurant Hummer & Austerbar, where 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 family in Auckland, followed by a position at the venerable Badrutt’s Palace in St. Moritz, Switzerland.  From there he set sail, literally, as chief cook on the opulent Royal Yacht Lady Moura, at the time the largest private yacht in the world. Frequently sailing to Turkey, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and the Lebanese coast it was on Lady Moura that he first dabbled with the use of Middle Eastern spices under the tutelage of the family’s personal chef. 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 five diamond 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 Martin Heierling was on his way to the most luxurious resort ever conceived and Las Vegas’ only AAA Five Diamond property – Bellagio.  At Sensi restaurant, Heierling’s first Executive Chef position, his practiced approach to cooking – ingredient-driven dishes, eschewing overwrought drama for elegant simplicity – takes center stage.  His contemporary continental cuisine is designed to take guests on a culinary adventure that draws cuisines from four corners of the world together in a contemporary setting.

At Silk Road, this traveler’s spirit manifests in elevated and flavorful dishes on a par with the grandeur and green-mindedness of Vdara Hotel & Spa.  Heierling is thrilled with the path his career has taken and credits “blind enthusiasm” for his willingness to take the culinary risks that brought him to where he is today.