Beast & Bottle Channels The Rolling Stones

As Paul Reilly and the Beast & Bottle crew ready themselves for this weekend’s 50 Years of the Rolling Stones wine dinner, we chatted with Reilly about his inspiration for the event. “We looked at how we could make wine dinners more approachable because they are fun and they do matter,” he says. In the process, Reilly started a series called Musical Chairs which uses rock bands as its muse. This dinner, the third in the series, is all about honoring the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary. “So, you might not know this random wine producer from Santa Barbara, but you do know the Stones,” Reilly says.

Like most restaurants, the Beast & Bottle crew is made up of huge music fans. “if we’re not talking food, we’re talking albums,” Reilly says. This dinner brings that passion to the dinner plate. The staff looked at the Stones’ entire roster and started pulling inspiration from songs. “Some were obvious—like “Brown Sugar” or “Red Rooster”—but we went deeper.” One such dish is “Give Me Shelter,” a riff on surf and turf with a dish of chorizo-cured beef brisket, sea snails, tomato gnocchi, and summer herb emulsion. The snail shell reference is somewhat obvious but Beast & Bottle went further by breaking “shelter” into “shel” and “ter” (which is close enough to “terra,” or land). “It’s something from the shell and something from the earth—it’s pretty geeky,” Reilly says.

That degree of enthusiasm trickles down to the paired wines, although it’s more difficult to find direct parallels. “I’ve exhausted a lot of avenues as far as rock and roll wines,” JP Taylor says. There will definitely be one for sure: Chateau Miraval, whose current owners are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. “The wine maker is of the Perrin family and it’s a serious wine,” Taylor says. “Originally it was called Cuvee Pink Floyd because that’s where he recorded The Wall.” Look for this beauty to be paired with the first course (“Salt of the Earth,” salt-roasted beet with guanciale, horseradish, orange, and fennel). “It’s high acid, low oak, and it’s somewhat off the beaten path, which fits with what we do,” Taylor says.

The Rolling Stones-inspired bash is a steal at $56 per person with optional $25 wine pairing. Call for reservations.

719 E. 17th Ave., 303-623-3223

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