There was a time not too long ago when Marc Vetri was a gambling man, which seems to make sense, given his new restaurant in Las Vegas. Twenty years ago, having just cleared 30, he was a chef from Abington, a single guy, a middle child from a family of overachievers, living and working in Italy, who pooled everything he’d saved into opening a tiny restaurant back home. To, in his words, “cook some food and make a living.”

Vetri clicked, a bastion of refined cooking in red-gravy Philadelphia. Vetri then made a business partner of his manager, Jeff Benjamin. Together, as the accolades rolled in and reservation books filled up, they opened more restaurants, including two Osterias, two Amises, and Pizzeria Vetri, mortgaging their houses all the while.