WITH: MINA STONE

Mina Stone is the chef artists love. 

We spent a recent morning with the force behind Mina’s, the new Greek-inspired MoMA PS1 café, to learn more about her path as chef to the big names of the art world—including the artists Urs Fischer and Elizabeth Peyton—and how cooking for creative people empowered her to develop her own culinary voice. Mina also tells us about the process behind her beloved cookbook Cooking for Artists (hint: she shot the whole thing on her iPhone), and the challenges and joys of opening a restaurant for the first time.  

Photography by Caroline Tompkins

I KNOW THAT YOU STUDIED FASHION AND USED TO MAKE CLOTHES—WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO FOOD, AND HOW DID YOU MAKE THAT LEAP? 

Yeah, I majored in fashion at Pratt Institute, and when I graduated I started my own line. I really wanted to do my own thing. I knew that if I worked for someone else I would get lost in the shuffle—I think my personality isn’t suited for it. So, I started a line of dresses. It was small, and I put very little money into it. I started cooking to support myself during that time. I had always liked to cook for friends, and one friend got me a job cooking for an Upper East Side family. I did that for a year and I learned a lot. 

It kept going better and better: I enjoyed it, I kept getting more work, and it felt freer than fashion. In 2006, Corinna Durland—who was the director of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise at the time—asked me to cook dinner at the gallery for 40 guests. That’s when my journey cooking for the art world began. I went on to meet Urs Fischer, and I spent several years cooking for him and his studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and I also wrote Cooking for Artists. Along the way I stopped making clothes altogether, and decided to only pursue food. 

DINNER FOR 40 IS NO JOKE, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU’RE NEW TO COOKING FOR A BIG CROWD. IT’S INTIMIDATING!

Super intimidating! Part of me wanted to say no, but I was like, Just try it. Just give it a whirl.

WAS FOOD A BIG PART OF YOUR UPBRINGING?

It was, but much more during my time in Greece than in the United States, because food is just engrained in Greek culture. My family and I lived in Greece when I was very young, and later—after we’d moved to the States—we’d spend three or four months out of the year there. My memories of Greece really stuck with me as I grew older. In the States, food wasn’t a central part of my upbringing: My mom always cooked, but we didn’t have long, big family meals—it was more about making sure we were fed.

HOW DO YOU THINK COOKING FOR ARTISTS HAS INFLUENCED YOUR STYLE?

You know, they really allowed me to be myself. This certainly isn’t the nature of all artists, but I think that a lot of creative people are excited by seeing someone express themself, and by getting to nurture that. That’s what they gave me: the freedom to express myself. I cooked what I was interested in or inspired by, and I pulled from my heritage and my life. 

I’m working on a new cookbook with HarperCollins Publishers—set to come out in 2021—and I actually struggle a bit when people ask me what it’s about. It’s really just documenting my journey cooking over a period of time. Cooking for Artists was a journal, and this book is also a journal. 

COOKING FOR ARTISTS FEELS LIKE SUCH AN EXPRESSION OF YOU. CAN YOU TELL ME A BIT ABOUT MAKING THE BOOK? WHAT DID THAT PROCESS LOOK LIKE, AND WHAT WAS THE FEELING YOU WERE GOING FOR? FOR INSTANCE, I KNOW THAT YOU CHOSE NOT TO USE A FOOD STYLIST.

The process was really organic. It was published by Urs’ imprint Kiito-San, and he designed it. We worked really hard on it, but it wasn’t a production, per se—we didn’t have any shoot days, for instance. I wrote the recipes and took the photos on my iPhone as I went along, and we pieced the book together over time. No one working on it had ever made a cookbook before. It took us about four years.

LET’S TALK ABOUT MINA’S. I’M SO EXCITED (BUT NOT SURPRISED AT ALL) THAT THE MOMA PS1 CAFÉ IS NOW YOURS. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PERSONALITY OF MINA’S?

It’s hard to say this without sounding corny, but I think the concept is that there is no concept. It’s just straightforward food: the food I like to cook and eat. 

When I reflect on my time cooking for the art world, I think about how straightforward and simple the food always was—and how well that worked for me. I think it’s the only thing I’m good at: food that provides an experience that’s really direct [laughs].

My partner Alex Eagleton is an artist, and he designed the space. It’s everything we love: it’s a little Greece, a little Miami—but it’s also clean, airy, and relaxing. Museum exhibitions put a lot in your head, and I don’t think a museum café should add to that. I think it should be a space for reflecting, talking with your company, and eating something delicious. That’s as far as Mina’s goes.

I ALWAYS LIKE TO TALK ABOUT FAILURE—IT’S OBVIOUSLY A HUGE PART OF GROWTH, AND I THINK IT’S REALLY HELPFUL TO BE TRANSPARENT ABOUT IT. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU FELT LIKE YOU FAILED?

The last time I felt like I failed was yesterday [laughs]. 

WHEN I ASK THIS QUESTION, MOST PEOPLE RECALL A FAILURE FROM JUST A DAY OR TWO BACK. 

I actually didn’t feel this way before I opened the restaurant, but ever since I feel like there are new failures of varying degrees each day. It’s been a big learning curve. I have a never-ending checklist to be on top of—and sometimes I leave out an item or two on that checklist.

WHAT HAS OPENING A RESTAURANT TAUGHT YOU? 

[Laughs] That all the clichés are true. I felt the same way when I became a mom. Everyone tells you that being a mom is like this, and like that. And my reaction to that was like, Yeah, yeah, whatever. And then I had my son, and I was like, Wow, it’s all true. I experienced the same exact thing with the restaurant. Everyone asked me why I wanted to do it, and commented on how hard the work was, and how hard it was to make money. Now I’m in it, and it’s all true! [Laughs] It’s been the most significant period of challenge and growth of my life, for sure. 

I’M SURE THAT MOST OF YOUR TIME IS SPENT AT THE RESTAURANT RIGHT NOW, BUT WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO MAKE AND EAT AT HOME WHEN YOU HAVE THE TIME?

There are two constants: The first is pasta with Greek meat sauce. It’s something that we will all happily eat—from toddler to adult. The second is tacos [laughs]. They’re two of the fastest things we can make, they’re delicious and healthy, and, you know—that works for us.