Dining at Peyote is like taking a drive down the Southern California coast, cruising past the beaches that inspire our décor, and down into Baja, where Chef Daniel Arias draws inspiration. The menu is steeped in rich, authentic traditions but with bold experimentation that makes for an experience that’s both familiar and daring.

“A lot of what I do is personal,” Chef Daniel says. “It’s what I grew up eating.”

Growing up in the border town of Calexico, he would watch relatives reel in fish from the Gulf of California and listen as it crackled and charred on the grill. His family ran a restaurant, and so much of his life revolved around food, but young Chef Daniel was more interested in sports than cooking. 

“My parents wanted me to go to school, and someone told me culinary school was easy,” he admits. At 17, he moved to Las Vegas to pick up the craft. It quickly became a passion — an obsession. “It felt like a sport, just learning different foods and cultures. This was something that I could do and keep learning forever,” he says. 

Being a chef took him around the world and back. He staged at fabled restaurants in France, Italy and Spain. The more he would travel and learn, the more new techniques and flavors he’d bring back to Las Vegas. Soon, Chef Daniel became a fixture at some of the city’s most renowned restaurants, such as Joel Robuchon and é by José Andrés.

Regardless of where his career took him, be it the City of Light or the city of sin, there was no place like home. A father and husband with deep respect for family, Chef Daniel joined his relatives and opened a restaurant in Ensenada on the coast of Mexico, where he ran an Omakase-style pasta restaurant. But it wouldn’t be long before Las Vegas came calling again.

This time, rather than joining an established kitchen in a busy casino, Chef Daniel rolled the dice on Downtown Las Vegas, where his recipes have turned Peyote into a must-visit destination for locals and tourists alike. Here, he continues to sharpen his culinary sword with forward-thinking, seasonal menus and unique dining events inspired by the vast and varied flavors of Latin America.

“I’m just trying to show who I am,” Chef Daniel says. “When you have my dishes, I want you to get into it and have a conversation about the food.”