Still life with Chef Guidone: Mangiamo’s longtime owner turns his attention to painting
Mangiamo chef and owner Ron Guidone turns his attention to painting. Photo courtesy the artist Still life by Ron Guidone. Ron Guidone has always been practical about art. Guidone owned, operated, and cooked at two downtown Manhattan Beach restaurants for four decades — Talia’s, which closed four years ago, for 36 years, and Mangiamo, which he recently turned over to his wife, Lisa, for 34 years. While other high concept restaurants came and went, Guidone’s little culinary empire endured. Two of the secrets to his success have Guidone’s naturally creative bent and his opportunistic nature — that is, some of his signature dishes were invented because those ingredients are what happened to be in the refrigerator, while others came to him in a dream. “I’ve woke from a sound sleep thinking, ‘I’ve got to go write this down, this is going to be a killer recipe.’ So I’d get up and jot it down,” Guidone said. “I’d forget about it then look at it in the morning and realize, ‘Oh yeah, that would be good. Let’s try that.’” A third not-so-secret part of his success is that he was able to balance creativity with doability. His restaurants didn’t lose themselves so deeply in concept that a plate…
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