Interview: chef Vinny Dotolo (Animal, Son of a Gun + Trois Mec)

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Chefs Los Angeles

INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Who else do you look to in the restaurant industry for inspiration, guidance or advice?

Michelle [Bernstein] was our first mentor, so obviously her. Paul Kahan’s one of my favorite chefs. We share a lot of the same thoughts about food. We’re not the same, in the sense that he’s got more knowledge and more experience, and he’s more seasoned. He’s a little older than us, but I love that he keeps it different and does different projects, and does what he loves. I love that about him. And Barbara Lynch too. I love both of them, and think they’re very similar, in their own ways. They do these projects, they stay in their city, they open restaurants in their city, they build community, they build the foundation for so many other people to build on top of, and hey create their own diversity within their restaurant group, and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to create diversity within our restaurant group, to build the culture, to build the clientele in L.A., rather than go and do restaurants in Miami or New York or Vegas, not that it’s never going to happen. Now it feels good to be such an important part of L.A. I love that, and think [Paul]’s that way in Chicago, and Barbara’s that way in Boston. We look at them to be the people that forge that ground and have that same kind of ideas, how we think about our restaurants, the diversity and the differences. You go to each of those places, you go to Barbara’s restaurants – I haven’t been to every single one, but I’ve been to most of them – same thing with Paul, they’re all different. The staff’s different, the food’s different, the vibe’s different, and I love that. It’s just doing what they love. That’s so cool. I love seafood, I love meat, and I love innards and organs, and I love cooking and love that process. I love fine dining too, like what we’re doing with Ludo. That’s been such an amazing thing.


Chefs Los Angeles
At what point did Los Angeles start to feel like your community?

A couple years into Animal, we felt, “Man, this could be a really special place, if we stay focused on it.” It’s hard. Staff moves around, changes. You grow. We’re growing constantly. L.A.’s been so good to us. We have a catering company that thrives here, and it’s been thriving for a long time, longer than Animal. That’s even a different clientele. All these different people, it’s speaking to so many different audiences in L.A. I love that. I love speaking to a couple hundred people per night, between restaurants. It’s awesome. I couldn’t wish for anything more. I know we don’t bat 1000, but we damn try. We don’t make every person happy, but we try. That’s the ultimate goal, make people happy, serve delicious food, have fun doing it, diversity, building community, all those different things we talk about and think about. Running a business too, on top of it. It’s a business.

How do you find ways to maintain balance, if that’s even possible?

That’s the million dollar question. Balance is the hardest thing between family and restaurants. Giving the staff enough attention, and your family. I have a kid now, about to have another one. Jon has a kid now. So it’s different now than when we opened Animal. Animal was everything, not that we didn’t care about our significant others, but Animal was everything, we put everything we had on the line. Our thoughts, our money, our ideas, our reputation, everything. Balance is the hardest thing, forever. You go away and you come back and you need to fix things and make things better. Change and grow, but you also have to spend time with your family, because you’ve been away. It’s hard. It’s the ultimate challenge.

When people hear your name, what do you want them to think of?

Me, as a person, I want them to think I was an overall good person. I try to treat people with respect and I try to teach people that work for us the things that I value. I try to be a good husband and good father. On a broader stroke, when people hear my name about the restaurants, I hope they say he’s a good guy and a good cook and made tasty food. That’s it.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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