Jon Shook & Vinny Dotolo's Neighborhood Expansion Plan

By Amy Scattergood Fri., Jul. 23 2010 at 10:48 AM

Categories: L.A. Restaurants, New Restaurants

Anne Fishbein

Shook and Dotolo at Animal

Rumor 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) in West Hollywood. No, they don't have a name or a concept or a target opening date yet. Calm down, read The New Yorker profile again, cook from their cookbook, go eat something at Animal. They just got the key yesterday.

"Yeah, it's legit," said Shook by phone this morning, emphasizing that both he and Dotolo live near Animal, and they're not going anywhere: not out of L.A., not even out of the neighborhood. As for the new restaurant, "We don't know what we're doing yet. The space came up in our territory and we thought that the building was really cool."

"It won't be another Animal, that's for sure. I'll tell you the concept: make really good food. I've never run two restaurants at one time; when I opened Animal, I'd never run one restaurant. It'll be before the year's out. We haven't even brought in the plumber in yet."