Michael & Kim McCarty

In 1979, at the age of 25, Michael McCarty founded Michael’s Santa Monica, a restaurant credited as an early pioneer of California cuisine with its market-driven plates that utilize local produce and hyper-seasonal ingredients. Throughout the years, Michael has spearheaded the restaurant’s evolution, bringing in a veritable who’s who of culinary talent that includes current chef Job Carder, as well as opening chef Jonathan Waxman, Nancy Silverton, Brooke Williamson, Sang Yoon, Mark Peel, Miles Thompson among others; and along the way, he authored Welcome to Michael’s: Great Food, Great People, Great Party!, which received a 2008 James Beard Foundation Cookbook award nomination in the entertaining category. Michael continues to walk the floor at Michael’s Santa Monica when he’s not splitting his time in New York, where he operates a different iteration of Michael’s in midtown Manhattan. Both restaurants feature modern art treasures, as curated by McCarty and his wife (an artist herself) Kim, and boast award-winning wine lists, which include the latest vintages from McCarty’s own The Malibu Vineyard.

Kim McCarty is an artist known for her nubile and waif-like figurative watercolors in muted hues, which she likens to “blurry afterimages drifting past closed eyelids.” McCarty began working with the medium in 1993, after a fire destroyed her studio and she could no longer find a space with proper ventilation for working with oil paint and became quickly intrigued with watercolor’s transparency, immediacy, and “unforgiving qualities.”