Jon & Vinny’s, the wildly well-liked Los Angeles Italian-American restaurant recognized for its spicy fusilli and pizza, is heading to Miami with a brand new ‘residency’ on the Rubell Museum. The restaurant — from cooks and co-owners Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, together with wine director Helen Johannesen — is ready to open within the subsequent few days within the museum’s Allapattah neighborhood, taking on the previous Leku house.
“We’re past excited to carry this Jon & Vinny’s residency to Miami—it’s a real homecoming for us,” says Shook. “Florida isn’t simply the place we have been born; it’s the place we met and started our culinary journey. We labored collectively in numerous kitchens throughout Miami and our love of meals led us out west to LA and now again right here.”
The Miami location will serve most of the restaurant’s well-loved dishes, together with the gem lettuce salad with Calabrian chili dressing, marinara-braised meatballs with house-made focaccia, and the LA Lady pizza. Whereas breakfast service gained’t be obtainable initially, the restaurant plans to supply its well-known pancakes all day — a primary for the restaurant. Johannesen has developed a full bar program for this location that includes basic cocktails with an Italian twist, together with a Miami-specific tackle the Jungle Fowl cocktail made with Aperitivo Choose as a substitute of Campari.
“We’re actually attempting to carry a style of our California vitality to the Miami individuals,” mentioned Johannesen, who notes that whereas the beverage program maintains the restaurant’s already established type, “It’s a killer program based mostly on producers we’ve all the time supported.”
Positioned on the Rubell Museum, the house options indoor seating for 44, outside seating for 50, and bar seating for 14. Architect Jeff Guga, who designed the unique Jon & Vinny’s places, has tailored the museum house with a lightweight redesign incorporating parts from the restaurant’s COVID-era outside eating setups, together with massive storage doorways that create an indoor-outdoor really feel.
For Shook and Dotolo, the Miami opening represents a homecoming of types. Each cooks bought their culinary begin in South Florida, attending culinary college in Fort Lauderdale and dealing beneath none apart from chef Michelle Bernstein early of their careers earlier than heading west to Los Angeles.
Shook and Dotolo first made waves nationally with Animal, their nose-to-tail restaurant that opened in 2008. Throughout its 15-year run — which earned a number of James Beard Award nominations earlier than closing final 12 months — the restaurant was credited by Eater LA as having “modified all the pieces” within the metropolis’s eating scene. The duo went on to construct a Los Angeles restaurant empire that included Son of a Gun (which closed earlier this 12 months after 13 years), French bistro Petit Trois (operated with chef Ludo Lefebvre), and 5 Jon & Vinny’s places. Although they’re calling the Miami location a “residency,” the crew hasn’t put any timeline on its run on the Rubell Museum.
“We’re treating it the identical approach they deal with artist residencies right here on the Rubell — they’ll keep so long as they need and take their physique of labor wherever they need,” mentioned Shook.
The opening aligns with Miami Artwork Week, when the crew will lengthen past the restaurant to supervise meals and beverage on the Resy Lounge, in partnership with Delta Air Strains and American Categorical, at Untitled Artwork Truthful and host a number of private and non-private occasions on the museum, together with a public breakfast pizza pop-up December 6 that includes their morning pies.
The restaurant is positioned at 1100 NW twenty third Road and will probably be open seven days per week from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. for lunch and dinner service, with breakfast (probably) being added in early 2025.