Pairing on Canvas: Merging Food, Wine and Art

Pairing on Canvas: Merging Food, Wine and Art

By Liz Goldner

At the turn of the last century, French artists and art lovers uninhibitedly imbibed in the pleasures of fine food, wine and art.

These incurable sybarites, including Monet, Renoir, Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec, lived life to the hilt, creating Impressionist canvases throughout the day, cooking up a feast at mid-day and evening, then dining and drinking in bistros in their beloved Paris and the surrounding countryside all night long.

Claude Monet, 1840 to 1926, famous for his paintings of water lilies, was later known for his kitchen gardens, growing fresh produce and herbs, and for his elaborate recipes. He moved to Giverny in 1883, creating so many magnificent landscape paintings that the village became famous. He also supervised expansive kitchen gardens and selected poultry for breeding stock.

Monet’s recipes, collected from restaurants and friends, were recently published in “Monet’s Table.” His tastes ran from steamed chicory, green beans and chestnuts to al dente asparagus and fresh salads. He enjoyed drinking expensive Veuve Clicquot Champagne without the bubbles, which he purposely dissipated by decanting the bottle long before drinking its contents.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864 to 1901, created artworks depicting Montmartre’s nightlife of cafés, bars and brothels, places he frequently visited. He also loved to toil in the kitchen, whipping up peculiar, yet gourmet dishes.

Lautrec preferred lunch to dinner, often inviting several friends to join him and always serving fine wine. He disliked water so much that he was known to add goldfish to the pitchers to deter would-be teetotalers. His food concoctions included eel liver, fried octopus, thrush en casserole, heron, coot en cocotte, boar, sautéed squirrel and wood pigeon with olives.

Yet his taste for the artist’s palette prevailed over the eccentricities of his food palate. Legend tells us that after one meal, prepared for fellow painter Edouard Vuillard and close friends, Lautrec led the group to a friend’s apartment, pointed to a freshly painted Degas on the wall and exclaimed, “There is your dessert.”

Art in Restaurants

John Ghoukassian, owner of three gourmet restaurants in Orange County, is an ardent admirer of Impressionist works. Growing up in Tehran, he often visited European cities, especially their cafes and bistros where works by local artists, some by the then-famed Impressionists, were on display.

When the luxury-loving Ghoukassian chose a career, he also combined fine food, wine and art, opening an acclaimed gourmet restaurant in Tehran in the 1970s, aptly named “Lautrec.” Along with contemporary European and Iranian cuisine, he satiated customers’ visual appetites by displaying European Impressionist works on the walls.

Ghoukassian moved to the United States in 1983, opening Bistango (little bistro) in Los Angeles the following year, and again adorned the restaurant with fine art, creating the look and feel of the European places he loved. Three years later, he closed the L.A. location and opened a similar restaurant, another Bistango, in Irvine. He opened Bayside Restaurant in Newport Beach in 1999 and Kimera in Irvine in 2007.

While fine restaurants throughout the Southland show original art, Ghoukassian’s venues are unique, combining features of art galleries with world-class restaurants. Bistango and Bayside are so well-known for their revolving art shows where major collectors regularly attend openings.

Artful Dining

Ghoukassian’s restaurants are based on the merging of exceptional art with fine wine, dining and music. They serve new-American cuisine and offer extensive collections of wine from award-winning lists. Bistango has more than 700 varieties, while Bayside has a circular glass wine cellar, displaying 2500 bottles.

Bistango’s Chef Javier Montoya serves crisp gourmet pizzas topped with Black Forest ham and Gruyere as well as seared ahi steaks, veal chops, seared scallops and filet mignon in a bleu-cheese sauce. Homemade pastas include fettuccine with curry-marinated lamb and shiitake mushrooms and cream. Bayside’s menu is similar, adding a Champagne Sunday Brunch.

The casual diner at Bistango or Bayside might dismiss the artworks as decoration. But look more closely and you’ll see world-class pieces by a variety of artists, some of whom are museum-recognized.

Curated Shows

Twenty two years ago, Ghoukassian engaged Studio Gallery of Irvine to provide art for Bistango’s walls. Gallery owner Antoinette Sullivan and the restaurant’s owner struck up a professional relationship, based on mutual respect and love of art. They put together four exhibits yearly, featuring several artists at Bistango and one major artist at Bayside.

The restaurants have exhibited some of California’s most famous painters, including Carlos Almaraz, Chuck Arnoldi, Billy Al Bengston, Richard Diebenkorn, Laddie John Dill and Ed Moses. In 22 years, they’ve curated over 80 shows of approximately 1200 artists.

While many galleries concentrate on specific types of art, such as contemporary abstract, Bistango and Bayside show a wide range of paintings, sculpture, photography and mixed media by local, national and international artists, emerging, mid-career, established and masters.

The works at Bistango and Bayside are often colorful, portraying a joie de vivre reminiscent of Parisian bistros. In Bistango’s 2007 winter show, several paintings of women by Israeli artist Eli Boodnero were hauntingly reminiscent of film noir characters in mysterious settings. Glass-based assemblage pieces by Debora Wayne glowed like giant jewels while photographic selections ranged from whimsical and awe-inspiring to haunting.

One of Bistango’s past exhibits featured artists from Australia, France, Germany, Mexico, Peru, Slovakia, Spain and the United States. Bayside was simultaneously exhibiting 25 canvases by Brian Scott, an Expressionist oil painter from Canada who created “Liz and Dick in Puerto Vallarta” of a home owned by Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.

Left Hand Journals

At Bistango, Sullivan and Ghoukassian were pleased to feature the works of Ron Pastucha, also from Canada but living in Orange County for the past 22 years. Pastucha, an activist artist who has exhibited works in upscale galleries throughout Southern California, was showing 12 of his newest pieces, “Left Hand Journals.”

He severely burned his right hand, his drawing hand, while cooking in April 2006. During therapy and enduring a long healing process, he painstakingly began writing journals, then drawing and painting with his left hand. While his right hand is significantly healed, he’s unable to write or draw with it for long periods.

Pastucha’s style combines contemporary allegorical imagery and refined realism to address social issues such as consumerism, materialism, rampant advertisement and urban decay. He has developed several powerful series, directing his message at major icons such as Mickey Mouse, Coca Cola and the Statue of Liberty.

When Pastucha started journaling four years ago, his art bore little resemblance to his earlier style. The “left hand” works were initially raw, primitive, childlike and often Expressionistic, employing nearly indecipherable words and simplistic stick figures. Yet the passion in these pieces expressed an outpouring of creativity as well as frustration.

As Pastucha progressed, his left-hand works demonstrated a growing dexterity and more polish, taking on the imagery of earlier pieces. These new drawings and paintings also incorporated Impressionistic, dissolving aspects, derived from the artist’s continued lack of tactile control in his left hand. (Outdoor painters, particularly Impressionists, often deliberately create works with dissolving aspects to mimic the changing natural light.)

Pastucha says that, even when his right hand is completely healed, he’ll continue to paint and draw with his left hand. “I feel more creative,” he states, pointing out the fact that the right brain (intuitive side) controls the left hand.

Ron Pastucha is continuing the Lautrec tradition of Impressionism, a style of art born from passion, frustration and a disability. His paintings give the viewer a sense of the genre’s earlier days when artists painted intuitively, breaking away from the older, more realistic art forms. Pastucha’s works suit Bistango’s ambience seamlessly, as the restaurant expertly blends the sensual delights of fine food, wine and art.

Photos by Eric Stoner