MICHAEL MCCARTY

Founder, Michael’s Santa Monica

MICHAEL MCCARTY was a 25-year-old, Armaniwearing chef when he opened his eponymous restaurant on Third Street, joined ten years later by a Manhattan outpost. Michael’s Santa Monica served as the springboard for an uncanny number of L.A. celebrity chefs—Jonathan Waxman, Mark Peel, Nancy Silverton, Roy Yamaguchi, Sang Yoon, Ken Frank, and Brooke Williamson all got their start in the chaotic kitchen. Meanwhile, their boss reimagined American fine dining with his California twist on French nouvelle cuisine served in a setting where waiters wore Ralph Lauren instead of tuxedos and modern art hung gallery-style on the pure white walls. “Michael’s is either an overrated piece of history or nothing short of the birthplace of modern American cuisine,” says McCarty’s son, Chas, who has comanaged the restaurant with his father since 2015. We’d tend toward the latter. —M.W.