Have you been to a celebrity-owned restaurant?
Are they worth the hype? Share your thoughts on the
Zagat Discussion boards! With the writers' strike finally over and the Academy Awards just around the corner on February 24th, most of Hollywood is thinking about who will be taking home that little gold guy. But not everybody can win an Oscar, so financially prudent actors might find themselves pondering potential side businesses. And if they want a tried-and-true second gig, the food industry is very welcoming to thespians. We're talking about owning here, not waiting on tables or tending bar.
LA is arguably the capital of the celeb-backed restaurant. The scene-heavy Melrose Italian Dolce Enotca e Ristorante has backing from the likes of Ashton Kutcher; the same group also owns the newish Ketchup,which boasts Wilmer Valderrama and Tara Reid as backers. Then there's Cathy Moriarty's pizza mini-chain Mulberry St. Pizza. Over in Pasadena, Jennifer Lopez opened Madre's, a glamour Puerto Rican dining spot. And, don't forget about Eva Longoria Parker and Todd English's upcoming Beso. Even Steven Spielberg's mother has her own kosher dairy kitchen, Milky Way. Although Johnny Depp no longer owns the Viper Room, the House of Blues, with investors ranging from Dan Aykroyd to Aerosmith, is still going strong.
For Robert De Niro, winning two Oscars wasn't enough – he still wanted to become an über-restaurateur. In West Hollywood, he has Ago, a pricey Tuscan that recently opened a location in Las Vegas and is on its way to New York. He has Rubicon in San Francisco and Nobu, Nobu 57 and Tribeca Grill in New York. Paul Newman, also an Oscar winner, opened the Dressing Room, an organic New American that sits adjacent to wife Joanne Woodward’s beloved Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, CT. Oscar winner Timothy Hutton put some money into the Midtown pub P.J. Clarke's, which now has three locations. And Oscar-winning director (and actor) Quentin Tarantino was an early investor in Korean Barbecue Do Hwa in New York City.
Indeed, NYC has no shortage of celeb-backed ventures. Justin Timberlake (yes, he's an actor too) recently brought Memphis BBQ to the Upper East Side via Southern Hospitality. Chris Noth's nightspot in the Flatiron, the Cutting Room, offers a performance space for all types of acts. The first Planet Hollywood even landed in Gotham and although the chain has lost some of its swagger and some of its original backers (most notably the Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger) it still has Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone to stand behind the 18 locations around the world, plus a recently opened Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
While the majority of actor-backed restaurants are in the celeb-infested environs of New York and LA, they do pop up elsewhere. In 2006, Sandra Bullock teamed with chef Brenton Childs to open Bess in Austin. Don Johnson and Cheech Marin are both backers behind San Fransisco's French-Vietnamese Ana Mandara. And in Paris, Gérard Depardieu has two restaurants: the Classic French La Fontaine Gaillon and the raw bar L'Ecaille de la Fontaine.