Among the great bistros and boîtes the world over, a few loom especially large in the art world for the outsized roles they play in the lives of artists, dealers, collectors, and writers. For CULTURED's first Art and Food issue, Nota Bene podcast co-hosts Nate Freeman and Benjamin Godsill spoke with a few of the masterminds behind these establishments to chat about what makes a good art restaurant, what artists and chefs have in common, and how to stay classic amid an ever-changing cultural landscape. Here, they dive deep with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo of the Los Angeles mainstays Son of a Gun and Jon & Vinny’s, who have catered hundreds of gallery dinners and galas.
Nota Bene: When we come to LA, one of our first stops is always Son of a Gun for a spicy chicken sandwich. More often than not, we bump into someone else from the art world there. Oftentimes, it’s not even an LA person. You also have done all sorts of catered dinners for galleries and artists. How did you guys get so locked in with the world of art?
Vinny Dotolo: Our introduction would probably have to be Earl McGrath, who was a dealer out here a long time ago. This is going back 22 years. Earl was the first person in the art world who really embraced us and hired us. It was literally just Jon and I catering then, so we would show up to people’s houses with supplies from the grocery shop or farmers market and write menus off the cuff. It was a lot of fun.
Slowly, it morphed into someone getting our phone number, then the next, and the next. The biggest gallery that took to us early on was probably Blum & Poe. They were supporters before we had any restaurants. I think people loved that Jon and I were out here, just doing it ourselves, and then when we opened, it sparked a whole new world of interest. At the end of the day, the food is made with a lot of integrity and good ingredients. People who have good taste in art have good taste in film, music, and food. It all blends together at some point.
Jon Shook: The art world’s a lot smaller than people realize. They travel a lot, so they have a sense of quality from doing that, and we try to provide that quality. A lot of Hollywood people also collect art, so we stayed in that little cyclone in our early stages—being passed around by Earl, Blum & Poe, Regen Projects, Gagosian, and importantly by Benedikt and Lauren Taschen.
Nota Bene: You’ve done all these great events. Is there one that stands out where you were like, “This is a crazy art world thing, and we’re cooking for it”?
Dotolo: My favorite art experience, which doesn’t have much to do with artists, was the first time we cooked for Wolfgang Puck at Gagosian Beverly Hills. It was like 11 p.m. when he showed up. He was there in his chef jacket, walking around. I met him briefly. The next morning, Vinny and I had to get up at 4 a.m. and catch a plane to Seattle to guest judge on Top Chef. We showed up at the house where they were shooting, and who opened the door? Wolfgang Puck. I was like, “How in the fuck did this guy beat us here?”
One thing I wish we did in the early days—if we were smarter, we would have—is to take a picture everywhere we went while we were catering. We would have all these great stories—cooking in the middle of the desert for Diplo, that kind of thing. To have met all these interesting people from cooking has been mind-blowing.
Nota Bene: Over the past 20-plus years, LA has been where a lot of the most interesting things are happening, and the most dynamic people are living and working. Maybe there’s a parallel in the food scene. What is it about LA that makes it such creatively fertile ground?
Dotolo: The city has an openness to it that other places don’t. In LA, people are used to daydreamers; they’re used to people with crazy ideas. You never know who you’re going to meet that might make that idea come alive, and that’s one of the coolest things about [the city]. People are willing to hear your ideas and try to understand them, whatever angle you’re coming from.
Shook: I agree with Vinny. There are so many dreams that have come true for people out here, from Walt Disney to guys like us and everything in between.
Nota Bene: We see an almost spiritual connection between practitioners in the food space and those in the arts. What do you think this bond between people in the arts and chefs is about?
Dotolo: There’s a nature of giving in art, and food is one of the most sincere forms of that. Both cooking and art are extremely selfish and egotistical, too. There’s so much ego in creating. What’s funny about Jon & Vinny’s is it’s not actually centered around us. Animal and Son of a Gun were much more rooted in our egos and our ideas about what we wanted to give people.
Every couple of months at Animal, someone would sit down, look at the menu, and immediately get up and leave, like, This is so not for me. It’s like when you walk into a show, and you’re like, I don’t even need to look at these paintings. They’re not for me. There’s a lot of exposure in it, too. In restaurants, you expose who you are all the time. Anyone can come in and judge you without knowing shit about you.
Shook: You’ve got to be dedicated to your craft. Regardless of whatever the art form is, there are no overnight success stories, even the people who might have spent so much time and dedication learning that craft. We’re very lucky to have the success we’ve had, but people rarely [hear] the story about the early days—the fallback plan for Animal was that, if we couldn’t afford our apartment at the same time, we would move into Animal.
I always say that if you can pay your bills doing your craft, you’re successful. That to me is the common thread between all of us in this space.
