Twenty Years on the Strip Before Spring Mountain Road
Brian Howard spent more than two decades cooking inside the Las Vegas Strip’s most demanding kitchens before he ever put his own name on a restaurant. He worked under Thomas Keller at Bouchon, cooked alongside Andre Rochat — the French chef who ran Andre’s, one of the first fine-dining restaurants in Las Vegas — and held positions under David Myers at Comme Ça. The apprenticeship was long and deliberate: Howard absorbed classical French and modern American technique from chefs who ran some of the tightest operations in the country, and he waited until he had the depth and the backing to open on his own terms.
When Sparrow + Wolf opened in 2017, Howard chose Spring Mountain Road — the commercial artery that runs through the heart of Las Vegas’s Chinatown district. The decision was intentional. Spring Mountain is one of the most competitive restaurant corridors in the American West, packed with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai kitchens run by first-generation owners who cook for their own communities. Howard planted a modern American restaurant in the middle of it, and Food & Wine responded by declaring that “Las Vegas finally gets a restaurant it deserves.” The kitchen draws on global technique but stays grounded in American idiom: roasted bone marrow, duck confit, and seasonal plates built around ingredients sourced from the Southwest.
National Recognition and the James Beard House
Sparrow + Wolf earned Howard two Desert Companion “Best Restaurant” awards, a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, and three invitations to cook at the James Beard House in New York City — a distinction reserved for chefs the foundation considers among the most important in the country. Howard was named a James Beard finalist for Best Chef: Southwest in both 2024 and 2026, placing him among the most recognized chefs working in the region. The accolades confirmed what Spring Mountain Road regulars already knew: Sparrow + Wolf is one of the most accomplished restaurants in Nevada.
Sparrow + Wolf in the Las Vegas Valley
Las Vegas dining has historically been defined by the Strip — celebrity chefs flying in to brand a hotel restaurant, then flying out. Howard’s choice to open at 4480 Spring Mountain Road represented a different model: a chef who trained inside the resort corridor but chose to build his own restaurant in a locals-driven neighborhood. Sparrow + Wolf is widely credited with shifting the perception of off-Strip dining in Las Vegas, proving that a nationally recognized kitchen could thrive on Spring Mountain Road alongside the Chinatown restaurants that had been doing serious cooking there for years. The restaurant remains one of the most important independent dining rooms in the valley.
- Owner
- Brian Howard
- Founded
- 2017
- Address
- 4480 Spring Mountain Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89102
- Phone
- (702) 790-2147
- Website
- sparrowandwolflv.com