Caroline Styne is a restaurateur and sommelier in Los Angeles. With her business partner Suzanne Goin she operates Lucques, A.O.C., Tavern, and The Larder. She won a

James Beard Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2018.

Early life and education

Styne was raised in Los Angeles. She worked as a waitress while in college. She is a master sommelier.

Career

Styne started working in foodservice in 1989 at the age of 22 when she cofounded Basically Baked Inc., which distributed specialty food items to retail outlets. She developed a baked tortilla chip which was one of the first of its kind. She sold the company in 1992, after which she started a catering company, Food Concepts. From 1994 thru 1997 she worked as a manager at Jones Hollywood for Sean MacPherson, during which period the restaurant was 80% destroyed by a fire. The rebuilding process was "a crash course in building a restaurant" for Styne, who managed the process in six weeks. In 1997 she met Goin, who was then working at

Campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

. According to Styne, LA's dining scene at the time was "either super casual or super fussy," and both women envisioned something in between. Styne and Goin opened Lucques on

Melrose Avenue Melrose Avenue is a shopping, dining and entertainment destination in Los Angeles that starts at Santa Monica Boulevard, at the border between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It ends at Lucile Avenue in Silver Lake. Melrose runs north of Beve ...

in 1998. It offered one of LA's early market-driven menus. On 11 March 2020 they announced the restaurant would close on 6 May. Styne and Goin opened A.O.C. in 2002. Food & Wine called A.O.C. "a pioneering restaurant that was at the forefront of small-plates dining in LA" and said the restaurant "changed the way LA dined." Johnathan Gold said of it, "If we've lived through a battle for L.A.'s restaurant soul, Goin and Styne have won." She and Goin opened Tavern in 2009 and in 2014, The Larder. In 2015 they took over food service at the

Hollywood Bowl The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018. The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...

. In 2019 Syne predicted

Albariño Alvarinho () or Albariño () is a variety of white wine grape grown in Northwest Portugal (Monção and Melgaço) and Galicia (northwest Spain) where it is also used to make varietal white wines. In Portugal it is known as Alvarinho, and some ...

could become "the new

Chablis Chablis () is a town and commune in the Yonne department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in north-central France. It lies in the valley of the River Serein. Wine The village of Chablis gives its name to one of the most famous French white wines ...

or the new

Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...

." She was a guest judge on '' Top Chef: All-Stars L.A.'' She writes wine notes for Goin's cookbooks. During the

2020 coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

she was involved in leading the

Independent Restaurant Coalition The Independent Restaurant Coalition is a US trade group formed during the COVID-19 pandemic by independent restaurateurs and chefs. During the pandemic the group lobbied local, state and federal governments for relief after their businesses were ...

, an industry group founded during the pandemic to lobby the federal government for relief for restaurants and their employees.

Honors

In 2018 Styne won a

for Outstanding Restaurateur. She was a semifinalist for the same award in 2014.

Personal life

Styne is married to Michael Kohn, an art dealer. They live in a 1926 home in Hancock Park and have two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Styne, Caroline Women restaurateurs Sommeliers People from Los Angeles James Beard Foundation Award winners Living people Year of birth missing (living people)