team

Jon Shook, Chef, Owner

Vinny Dotolo, Chef, Owner

Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo opened Animal restaurant in June 2008 to widespread acclaim. Since opening it’s doors the duo has been awarded some of the most prominent national accolades including, Food & Wine Best New Chefs of 2009, two James Beard nominations, Rising Star Chefs by Star Chefs and Wine List of the Year by GQ Magazine.

They have been covered in numerous publications, including, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, The New Yorker, Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine magazine, and have appeared on The Morning Show, Last Call with Carson Daly and NPR’s Good Eats. The duo still operates a full service catering company, which opened the door for an appearance on Iron Chef America and paved the way for their own Food Network show, 2 Dudes Catering. Continuing their success, the guys wrote their first book for Random House publishing titled, Two Dudes One Pan. It was voted one of NPR’s “10 Best Cookbooks of 2008”.

Jon and Vinny met while attending culinary school at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Their first job together was in the kitchen of famed chef Michelle Bernstein at The Strand Restaurant in South Beach. They continued to work in numerous other top chef kitchens in south Florida, including: Mark Millitello’s of Mark’s, Oliver Saucy of Café Maxx and Doug Reese of The River House. They left Florida to work with Ray Roach at the Wildfower Restaurant located in The Lodge at Vail in Vail, Colorado. Continuing their trajectory west, they landed in Los Angeles in 2001 where they worked with Govind Armstrong and Ben Ford at Chadwick’s before launching their own catering endeavor, and ultimately their first restaurant, Animal. Their second restaurant, Son of a Gun, will open in February 2011.

 

Helen Johannesen
Director of Operations/ Beverage Director

Helen was born in New York City. Her mother taught her at a young age the importance of food and where it comes from, and every summer they would tend to a large vegetable garden. From there her passion for food and restaurants grew. After working for a short time at a restaurant in Madison, WI called L’Etoile, the experience inspired her to follow her dreams of working with food and wine. This led her to Los Angeles where she worked at Craft before joining Jon and Vinny at Animal in July of 2009.

 

 

 

Michael Magliano
Chef de Cuisine

Michael was born in Mission Viejo, California but raised in Kansas City. His calling as a chef started in boy scouts where he was assigned the roll of grub master, whose duties included planning meals for their camping trips. In high school, his passion for create dishes was to cure the hunger of after school munchies for him and his friends. His dad pushed him to try a Chef Apprentice program in college and Michael realized it was a perfect fit. Michael has worked at The American Restaurant, The French Laundry, Redd, Craft and Quince. He joined the Animal team in December of 2010.