Ray Stark - Hollywood film producer, power broker and art collector – was born October 3, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois. Ray’s Restaurant and Stark Bar - the Patina Group’s new Mediterranean restaurant and bar, featuring farm-to-table ingredients and hand-crafted cocktails – was born March 5, 2011, adjacent to the new Resnick Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The bar and restaurant – sleek, contemporary, minimalist – was designed by the long-time LACMA go-to firm, Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The decor features usable art by Eva Zeisel, Russel Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, and Herman Miller, among others. The food – seasonal, most of it from the restaurant’s wood-burning oven and grill – is designed by acclaimed chef Kris Morningstar (Mercantile, District, Casa). The cocktails are the work of Michel Dozois (Neve Ice), and sommelier Paul Sanguinetti (Fraiche) has sculpted the wine program.

Ray Stark is known for a list of blockbusters including Funny Girl, The Sunshine Boys, Annie and Steel Magnolias. Ray’s restaurant is producing acclaimed dishes like their chile with chorizo, dates, goat cheese and almond sauce; and an amazing porchetta/smoked pork crackling dish that is at once rich and crispy and as comforting as a down-home Sunday supper.

Their house cocktails, bearing names like Steel Magnolias (strawberry, basil, sparkling wine), Cheap Detective (St. Germain, Cynar, Campari), Lost in Yonkers (rum, freshly squeezed lime juice, simple syrup, raspberry, cucumber) and Little Annie (gin, Cointreau, egg white, freshly squeezed lemon juice, raspberry syrup, cherry) are beginning to draw crowds.

But perhaps the biggest attraction to the destination – even more than the fact that someone is finally serving high quality cocktails on the Miracle Mile (with free parking at LACMA after 7pm!), is the feeling of eating and drinking [inside] a work of art.

Ray’s is open for dinner from 5-10PM and Stark Bar serves from 11AM-11PM. The restaurant and bar are both closed on Wednesdays.

It’s eight o’clock, and Dan Moody is directing traffic. Plates pile up on the small ledge between the kitchen and the dining room, and skittish servers wait, wide-eyed, for Moody to point them in the right direction.

This is opening night at Moody’s – and San Diego’s – first pop-up restaurant, Relate. It’s showtime.

Dan recently graduated from the kitchen of super chef Ludovic Lefebvre. Chef Ludo, the master of the pop-up concept, took Moody on after the two met at the now shuttered L’Orangerie, in West Hollywood, CA. Dan was doing an externship from the Culinary Institute of America; after finishing up at CIA, Moody stayed on at the restaurant as a full-time employee. When Ludo left L’Orangerie, the two lost contact until Dan found Ludo and his wife, Krissy, on Twitter and volunteered for the third incarnation of Ludo’s pop-up, LudoBites.

New recipes, disagreements, mutual camaraderie and three more wildly successful LudoBites later, Dan decided to pop up on his own, and began the hunt for an appropriate breakfast/lunch restaurant in his hometown of San Diego. Continue Reading »

The stars and celebrities of food and fashion television and film are preparing to revel in Hollywood on January 13th 2011 at their own one-of-a-kind awards show, the 2nd Annual TASTY Awards. The TASTY Awards is the premier awards show celebrating the year’s best in Food, Fashion, and Home Lifestyle programs on Television, in Film, and Online. 

Fans, networks, producers and sponsors could not be more excited.

The Awards Show features a star-studded lineup, including host Zane Lamprey (Travel Channel, HD Net), and presenters Tanya Holland (Cooking Channel, Food Network), Leslie Sbrocco (PBS), Nathan Lyon (Fit TV, Discovery Health, PBS, Food Network), and Bobby Bognar (History Channel), along with newcomers such as Candice Kumai (Lifetime, Bravo), Brian Boitano (Food Network), Daniel Green (ShopNBC), Luciene Salomone (WE tv), Amy Paffrath (E! Entertainment Television), Jeannie Mai (Style Network), Kevin Roberts (TLC), Peter Ishkhans (Style Network), Aida Mollenkamp (Food Nework, Cooking Channel), Darryl Robinson (Cooking Channel), and Fabio Viviani (Bravo’s Top Chef). Continue Reading »

I know you must be sitting there wondering how we could possibly make an evening of fine beverage, amazing comedians and helping children even better, but we’ve done it. The wonderful people of Kara’s Cupcakes have just agreed to set up shop at the Mutineer Magazine Holiday Comedy Festival and we are so pleased to have them join us.

We Mutineers are all pretty excited about this turn of events so don’t be surprised to see us lining up to buy one of Kara’s adorable little treats. I am personally looking forward to their vanilla cupcake with sweet Madagascar bourbon vanilla frosting. And, I have it on good authority that our fearless Editor in Chief is excited to have a coconut cupcake, having seen him thoroughly devour enjoying one at the Oxbow Market in Napa recently.

This weekend the food trucks (and trailers and vans) are pulling out all the stops at the Mutineer Magazine Holiday Comedy Festival. We are happy to announce that Cochon Volant (Flying Pig!) Barbecue will be joining us. Owner and chef Rob Larman will be serving up barbecued pork and brisket sliders from his flying pig smoker for your dining pleasure.

The trucks will open for business at 7:00pm Saturday, so be sure to get there in time to grab an amazing (and cheap) dinner at the trucks before the show starts. I know I will!

It would seem that food trucks and vendors have begun taking over downtown Napa and I for one am very excited. Why am I excited, you may ask? I’m excited because three of these trucks will be parking at Jacuzzi Family Vineyards on December 11th for the Mutineer Magazine Holiday Comedy Festival. Okay, so its one truck, an Airstream and a mobile barbecue trailer, but the idea is the same.

Dim Sum Charlie’s will be joining us at the Comedy Festival. Normally found just past the train tracks, off of First Street in Napa, Dim Sum Charlie’s is owned by Andrew Siegal and chef Clayton Lewis. They serve up delicious dim sum from pork sui mai dumplings to sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves stuffed with pork sausage, chicken and scallops. I know I can’t wait to try out some of these dumplings paired with an ale from Lagunitas or crisp Vernaccia wine from Jacuzzi, both of which will be offered at the tasting during the festival. Continue Reading »

Michael Kobayashi can’t keep away from the flame. One would think, after ten successful years as a music manager, that he’d evaluate the chaos of combining that life with the frenetic existence of a restaurateur, and just let it go. But Michael and his chef-brother, Chris, just celebrated the fourth anniversary of their restaurant, Artisan, and there seems to be no sign that Michael’s day after day commitment to both of those worlds is in any sort of decline.

Continue Reading »

Several months back I was contacted about a new cookbook specializing in boozy desserts. Did I want to check it out? Um, yes, please.

The book is called The Spirited Baker and is written by Marie Porter and shot by her husband Michael Porter. When looking through the recipes I ran across many intriguing recipes such as SoCo Peaches and the recipe I am pleased to share with you today for Beer Jalapeno Brittle. Continue Reading »