The James Beard Foundation unveiled award finalists earlier this morning. Among the hometown candidates who remain contenders for the award are the following: Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (Animal) for Best Chef: West (CA, HI, NV); Piero Selvaggio (Valentino, Valentino Vin Bar) and Carolyn Styne (Lucq ... More >>
The James Beard Foundation unveiled award finalists earlier this morning. Among the hometown candidates who remain contenders for the award are the following: Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (Animal) for Best Chef: West (CA, HI, NV); Piero Selvaggio (Valentino, Valentino Vin Bar) and Carolyn Styne (Lucq ... More >>
The James Beard Foundation unveiled award finalists earlier this morning. Among the hometown candidates who remain contenders for the award are the following: Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (Animal) for Best Chef: West (CA, HI, NV); Piero Selvaggio (Valentino, Valentino Vin Bar) and Carolyn Styne (Lucq ... More >>
Two great L.A. restaurants have dinners coming up that benefit charity. Next week on Jan. 14, Animal will host a dinner with Christopher Kostow, the 3 star Michelin chef of The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena, California.
Where the Chefs Eat is an ongoing series in which we ask a local chef to give us his or her favorite dining options. This week, Animal and Son of a Gun chef Jon Shook tells us his favorite spots to eat these days. Like most of us, Jon Shook is looking for two things when he's eating out: good food ... More >>
For the past couple of weeks, we've been talking to L.A. chefs about their holday food traditions. Here's a roundup of all of those great chefs and what they do for the holidays, food-wise, plus a couple of extras thrown in for good measure.
For the past week or so, we've been featuring the holiday food traditions of L.A. chefs. Today, we talk to Animal and Son of a Gun chef Jon Shook (who is expecting a wee babe in the spring -- mazel tov) about latkes, brisket, ham and casserole. "I grew up in a Jewish household, so we always had po ... More >>
There was once a time, perhaps, when poutine was consumed mostly by Quebecois with a penchant for late-night drunk food. But ever since it made its way into the playbooks of hip chefs a few years ago, poutine has become a gastropub staple, up there with beet salad and blue-cheesed burgers. In its ... More >>
Over the past few months, you've watched us catalog our 100 Favorite Dishes. Catalog being a lovely term meaning eating our way across this town, well, even more than usual. And because we thought you might want a better way to access these, we've collected all one hundred into one piece, a menu if ... More >>
Animal, Son of a Gun and the real takeaway of the Southern food trend
This week we're launching a new series called Food of the Moment which devotes itself to an ingredient or dish currently experiencing an boom at local eateries. We'll then eat it, dissect it, discuss it -- and tell you where you can get some. In a Slate piece back in September, Rachel Levin chronic ... More >>
Beer and Grilled Cheese Pairing Night Sample exotic beers and grilled cheese at Andrew's Cheese Shop at this popular annual event, which features tastings and tutorials with beer and cheese experts. WHAT: Beer and Grilled Cheese Night WHEN: Thurs., Sept. 6, 7:30-10 p.m. WHERE: Andrew's Cheese Shop ... More >>
Smithsonian: The 11 Things You Didn't Know About Wheaties. LA Observed: Paul Ryan's new speechwriter is, among other things, a vegan. Bon Appetit: How to make the best homemade french fries ever. Grub Street LA: Jon Shook and Michael Voltaggio head to Baja. The Huffington Post: Nancy Pelosi's ob ... More >>
Leading up to this year's Best of L.A. issue (due out Oct. 4), we'll be counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes. 67: Son of a Gun's Uni and Burrata. There are quite a few contenders for favorites on Son of a Gun's menu, dishes that made this restaurant a destination in th ... More >>
[Editor's note: Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. Be sure to also check out the archives.] You really haven't heard Kanye West and Jay-Z's "H.A.M." until it plays while you dig into a slab of Animal's balsamic pork ribs, delicata squash, arugula and p ... More >>
Most people celebrate their 40th birthday with a night out their favorite restaurant. Chef David LeFevre is doing his a bit differently -- he's hosting a 7-chef, 5-course meal at his own Manhattan Beach restaurant Manhattan Beach Post on July 16. Alongside him will be Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook of A ... More >>
If you've ever worked in a restaurant kitchen, you have undoubtedly had the irrational fear that you won't be able to get out of the walk-in, and you'll die in there. Turns out that fear isn't so irrational: Huffpost Food reports that a restaurant owner in Tennessee was found dead inside his walk-in ... More >>
In protest of California's rapidly approaching foie gras ban, C.H.E.F.S. (the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards), an organization that sounds like an maniacal conglomerate out of a James Bond film, or perhaps a culinary-slanted take on the Avengers, announced yesterday that it will ... More >>
When the ban on foie gras takes effect on July 1, Californians with a taste for foie will be reduced to copping the creamy tan stuff in little, perfect slugs squeezed into wax paper packets like opium. They'll slip from hand-to-hand on public transportation. Liver-laden trucks will trundle from ne ... More >>
Today's food word cloud is of this month's menu from Animal, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo's Fairfax Avenue restaurant. Look closely and you get a quick idea of what makes the restaurant so much fun: poutine and oxtail, fondue and Spam. You can also see how important foie gras has been to the place, an ... More >>
[Our 30 Sandwiches in 30 Days series was big -- but not big enough to encompass the multitude of L.A.'s sandwiches. As promised, our weekly sandwich pick extends the odyssey.] Son of a Gun is, for the most part, a seafood restaurant, one where Animal duo Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo give reign to the ... More >>
It's National Hot Toddy Day, another holiday seemingly invented for food writers who need to fill blogs with dubious copy (cough, cough). Not that we have anything against warm cocktails. They're romantic. They're old. They're vaguely medicinal. Amid the tame Los Angeles winter, however, hot toddy c ... More >>
It's National Hot Toddy Day, another holiday seemingly invented for food writers who need to fill blogs with dubious copy (cough, cough). Not that we have anything against warm cocktails. They're romantic. They're old. They're vaguely medicinal. Amid the tame Los Angeles winter, however, hot toddy c ... More >>
It's National Hot Toddy Day, another holiday seemingly invented for food writers who need to fill blogs with dubious copy (cough, cough). Not that we have anything against warm cocktails. They're romantic. They're old. They're vaguely medicinal. Amid the tame Los Angeles winter, however, hot toddy c ... More >>
It's National Hot Toddy Day, another holiday seemingly invented for food writers who need to fill blogs with dubious copy (cough, cough). Not that we have anything against warm cocktails. They're romantic. They're old. They're vaguely medicinal. Amid the tame Los Angeles winter, however, hot toddy c ... More >>
With a state law that bans the sale of foie gras coming down the pipeline like so much corn meal down a duck's throat, trust a Frenchman to lead the chefs' rebellion against the impending foie gras ban. Chef Ludo Lefebvre has teamed with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo to host a foie gras feast at Anima ... More >>
Flickr/chingstareal San Marzanos -- 95% of American-sold cans of San Marzano tomatoes are not the real thing. [gustiBlog via NYT] -- From omnivore to vegan: The dietary education of Bill Clinton. [CNN] -- How to store olive oil, from Bill Daley. [Chicago Tribune] -- More fun with Jon Sh ... More >>
Flickr/chingstareal San Marzanos -- 95% of American-sold cans of San Marzano tomatoes are not the real thing. [gustiBlog via NYT] -- From omnivore to vegan: The dietary education of Bill Clinton. [CNN] -- How to store olive oil, from Bill Daley. [Chicago Tribune] -- More fun with Jon Sh ... More >>
Flickr/chingstareal San Marzanos -- 95% of American-sold cans of San Marzano tomatoes are not the real thing. [gustiBlog via NYT] -- From omnivore to vegan: The dietary education of Bill Clinton. [CNN] -- How to store olive oil, from Bill Daley. [Chicago Tribune] -- More fun with Jon Sh ... More >>
Anne Fishbeininterior of Son of a Gun This week, Jonathan Gold visits Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo's second restaurant, Son of a Gun. That would be their fish restaurant: Imagine going through the Animal menu and replacing all the pork products with corresponding bits of seafood. Okay, that's n ... More >>
Son of a gun, Jon Shook can fish. But can he cook what he catches? Picking through the wreckage of a recalcitrant sanddab riddled with bones, the chef (Animal, Son of a Gun) at one point in the short documentary Fish turns to a pal and laments, "What I got going in my head is just not working." We ... More >>
Son of a gun, Jon Shook can fish. But can he cook what he catches? Picking through the wreckage of a recalcitrant sanddab riddled with bones, the chef (Animal, Son of a Gun) at one point in the short documentary Fish turns to a pal and laments, "What I got going in my head is just not working." We ... More >>
F. FriesemaJonagold apples Whatever the current style in Los Angeles restaurants ends up being named, all of it -- from the small-plate thing to the fixation on local, organic produce; the off-center proteins to the international palette of flavors; and the resistance to even modest customer ... More >>
N. GalutenInside Son of a Gun, where the paper will be up until tomorrow morning.After much waiting and anticipation, Son of a Gun, the new restaurant from Animal chefs Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook, is opening for business tomorrow night. We spoke with Shook over the phone, who confirmed the op ... More >>
N. GalutenThe other side of the paper: Vinny Dotolo (left) and Jon Shook inside Son of a Gun"I remember walking these streets wasted," said Jon Shook, who along with Vinny Dotolo make up the chef and ownership duo behind the highly-acclaimed restaurant Animal. "I'm back." Dotolo and Shook ar ... More >>
N. GalutenAnimal (and Son of a Gun) chefs Jon Shook (right) and Vinny DotoloAfter much speculation and many rumors, Animal chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo have released the name and concept of their new restaurant, opening at 8379 West Third Street. As the Animal team told Food & Wine Magazi ... More >>
N. GalutenA marijuana dispensary in a former Kentucky Fried Chicken UPDATE: Since Proposition 19's defeat on Tuesday, we checked in with Animal chef Jon Shook to get his take. Shook told us, "I personally feel like if we couldn't pass gay marriage, and we were able to pass Prop 19, then we ar ... More >>
Good thing that Labor Day weekend traditionally marks the end of wearing white -- although here in Los Angeles, many restaurants are lucky if diners wear pants, white or otherwise -- as this holiday weekend has turned into one giant food festival. Between all the food trucks, food demos, cooking com ... More >>
Anne FishbeinShook and Dotolo at AnimalRumor and speculation and unrestrained wish-fulfillment aside, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo are indeed opening a second restaurant. Yesterday the two chefs confirmed that they signed the lease on the 8379 West Third Street location (Restaurant 3, Cynthia's ... More >>
In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "Even the third or fourth time around, Fu-ga seems like a discovery, a small piece of a better downtown preserved 20 feet underground."
N. Galuten The New York Times ran an interesting article today about the degree to which marijuana is fueling current restaurant trends toward, fattier, comforting and more deeply sensual cuisine. It also revealed (perhaps with minimal surprise) that a lot of big name chefs in the country sm ... More >>
Vendy AwardsVendys come to L.A. this Saturday For the past five years in New York City, The Vendy Awards have celebrated the best street food that city has to offer. This Saturday, for the first time, they're coming to Los Angeles. This year's proceedings will take place at MacArthur Park, w ... More >>
Elina ShatkinAnimal's fried chicken sandwich.With all the recent hoopla about fried chicken, it's no surprise that Animal chefs and recent New Yorker poster boys Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo wanted to enshrine their take on the dish. Yesterday on the Cart For A Cause truck, the dudes dished out a b ... More >>
In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "...it's safe to assume that few of us have ever been as voracious as the planet Neptune, which may have, according to a paper by Steven Desch quoted by The New Scientist, once slurped up an entire super-Earth and stole ... More >>
Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo grew up in Florida, met in culinary school, then went on to start a successful catering business. They had a cookbook, a Food Network show called 2 Dudes Catering, and even battled Cat Cora on an episode of Iron Chef America. But then they opened Animal Restaurant on Fairf ... More >>
Ever wonder what's on José Andrés' playlist? You figure he must be listening to something cutting edge while he's thinking up cotton candy foie gras and playing with the nitro canisters at The Bazaar, right? Try Elton John's Daniel. We know this because the Spanish chef shares his personal soundtr ... More >>
Jon Shook shot down a report from earlier today that the Animal duo are in possible talks to open a deli in New York City. "No. We heard the story and had a laugh about it," said Shook. He went on to add that they have no immediate plans of any kind to open a restaurant in New York. For the ... More >>
Photo credit: Diane CuA wheelbarrowful of dirtIf you work your way down the food chain, traveling, say, from the quail fry with grits, chard, slab bacon and maple jus on the menu at Animal to the rows of chard and thus to the field in which the vegetables are grown, you will eventually come t ... More >>
The Food Dudes release their inner animal
Chef duo's Food Network show falls flat, but they've moved on to the Carson Daly show and their first restaurant, Animal
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