{"id":1162,"date":"2020-03-11T18:39:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T01:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2026-08-30T22:45:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T05:45:47","slug":"chef-natalie-young-old-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/chef-natalie-young-old-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Chef Natalie Young: Old Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article was printed in the<\/em>
\n Spring 2020 issue of Chic Compass Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Chef<\/span><\/div><\/div>
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Chef Natalie Young: Old Soul<\/h1>\n

BY JANICE MARIE WILSON<\/p>\n<\/div>

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An Old Soul is a person who feels much older than their age reflects. This feeling is often accompanied by the gift of empathy, high intelligence, intuition, and keen insight into the human condition. Old Souls are relatively rare and compose a small percentage of the world\u2019s population. Old Souls are not common in today\u2019s society.<\/p>\n

Old Soul restaurant in the World Market Center embodies all these qualities. The minute you walk into the restaurant, you have a feeling that something very rare and special was created. The restaurant\u2019s d\u00e9cor is vintage 1920. You feel a special connection to the care that was chosen in each piece as if you were visiting your grandmother\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

The restaurant exudes a grandmother\u2019s love and joy for her family. The menu and fare have the flair of giving you the hearty nourishment from a forgotten past. Remember when we loved sitting around the dinner table and felt the familiar love of our grandmother\u2019s cooking. Everything was home-made, nourishing, fresh, and delicious. That is what Old Soul restaurant embodies. It is a rare and treasured find.<\/p>\n

Chef Natalie Young, restaurateur and owner of Eat and Old Soul restaurants, is the intellectual powerhouse that created this experience. Her intuition and keen insight into the human condition gives the dining experience a memory to treasure.<\/p>\n

Chef Natalie is an Old Soul by definition. An Old Soul focuses on irreplaceable things that bring them lasting fulfillment and joy. This is what you will find at her restaurant.<\/p>\n

She embodies Rilke\u2019s poem, \u201cGo to the limits of your longing. Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror. Just keep going, no feeling is final.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chef Natalie Young wanted to be an artist. Her dad told her, \u201cGet a job!\u201d Born in St. Louis and raised in Denver, Colorado, she came to Las Vegas to get sober. \u201cI lost everything, my family, my partner, my job. I did anything I could for work, trimmed trees, cleaned up after horses. I look around at everything I have now, and it seems absolutely unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought I could own a restaurant,\u201d she states unabashedly. I asked her how she became so successful. She attributes everything to something\/someone bigger in charge. Without hesitating, she told me, \u201cI\u2019m a f....ing miracle. I don\u2019t have the ability to think this big.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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She\u2019s now been sober for nineteen years. Arriving in Las Vegas, she spent two months in rehab. \u201cIf I can, you can.\u201d Her brown eyes sparkle and ignite a flame from within. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I get to do what I get to do. I am so grateful. I feel I owe. I need to pay it forward. I don\u2019t need anything. I have enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is a woman who believes in focus and grind. She doesn\u2019t question things. She lives by the principle that she is not a victim. All are key ingredients for the recipe of success in the culinary world, and life.<\/p>\n

She really never gave up her dream as an artist. She just traded paintbrushes and canvases for fruits and vegetables that create art on a plate.<\/p>\n

A professional chef for over 20 years, she has worked in some of the country\u2019s most celebrated\u2014and most demanding\u2014kitchens, including stints alongside such notable chefs as Mark Miller (Coyote Caf\u00e9) her favorite, and John Joho (Eiffel Tower) for seven years, where she was awarded her coveted Chef title. She also helped open the Hard Rock Hotel. Although she acquired her love for food out of necessity, her artistic soul nourishes every kitchen, job, and person she meets.<\/p>\n

I had the pleasure of meeting with Chef Natalie at her Old Soul restaurant at the Las Vegas World Market Center. Meeting Chef was a transformational experience. Her signature style of tattoos, close-cropped shaved head covered by a straw hat with a worn crease, and overalls shattered my preconceived perceptions of the white frocked celebrity chef. Despite her unorthodox appearance, I am told Chef Nat is all Biz in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

As she sat down at the antique table in Old Soul, she treated me like an old friend. She was warm, down to earth, authentic and humble. She brings her signature style to the culinary world, the art of breaking bread to the dining experience. She wants her customers to feel at home whether you\u2019re a food critic or a valet. Chef Nat wants her restaurants to feel approachable. \u201cI love this space,\u201d she exudes with enthusiasm. \u201cPeople are surprised by the way it looks and feels.\u201d Old Soul is filled with antiques Chef Natalie purchased on Main Street, in Las Vegas. It\u2019s like having a cherished meal on your grandmother\u2019s fine china.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Her mantra is simple. Make the menu simple and approachable, \u201cA potato comes out of the ground. Enjoy that potato.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has created the Old Soul\u2019s menu to be simple without being predictable, blending East Coast dishes with Southern-style flair. For example, the smoked trout appetizer swaps corn cakes in place of traditional latkes. That nod to soul food pops up throughout the menu, in starters like fried green tomatoes (Chef Nat\u2019s favorite movie) and fried oysters and entr\u00e9es such as liver and onions. Don\u2019t fret if you didn\u2019t grow up on these old American staples; there\u2019s plenty more to explore, like grilled branzino with wilted arugula and house-made chimichurri, or braised short rib risotto with English peas and truffle oil. The bread pudding with pineapple and vanilla ice cream is killer too. The cherry pie is served in a black skillet iron pan, that sizzles with an explosion of Grandma\u2019s sweetness. Make sure you order one with a French press coffee to share\u2014or skip dessert and go straight for an after-dinner cocktail of bourbon, like a true old soul. Relax and savor the ambiance, as you watch the black and white projections of silent films featuring Charlie Chaplin on the silver screen.<\/p>\n

Chef Nat\u2019s menu is as authentic as she is. She works at not hanging so tightly onto things and strongly believes life is a journey, not a destination. It is the experience that determines how you live, not how you die. She proudly shows off the black letters of her knuckled tattoo WALK AND CRY, as she recounts the story of a young friend who was dying of cancer at the young age of 21. They were walking on the beach in Venice, California, and Natalie was crying and feeling sorry for her dying friend. Her friend looked at her and firmly commanded Natalie to \u201cWalk and Cry. I don\u2019t have much time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natalie\u2019s no victim mentality comes from her dad\u2019s advice. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to go out and get yours. Nobody cares. Look what they did to Jesus. People are in fear when they\u2019re not being nice.\u201d She smiles, warmly recounting his words. \u201cI kinda do what I want. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do if someone told me what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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She recounts one of the penultimate moments, when Anthony Bourdain came into her restaurant and greeted her with, \u201cHi Chef!\u201d Natalie beamed with the pride of an actor winning an Academy Award. \u201cI worked my whole life to have him call me this,\u201d she beamed.<\/p>\n

Chef Nat, God certainly takes care of you. Thank you for being a steward to a nourishing soulful culinary experience for all of us.<\/p>\n

Need to let you know that if you\u2019re going to the Smith Center for a concert, Old Soul is the place to have dinner, drinks, or dessert before or after the theatre. And don\u2019t forget to tell a friend. Places like Old Soul and people like Chef Natalie need to be shared and loved by all of us.<\/p>\n

Old Soul: 495 S. Grand Central Parkway #A116, Las Vegas, NV<\/strong>
\n(702) 534-0999<\/strong>
\nMonday-Saturday, Noon - 9 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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