Dealer Robert Mnuchin and his daughter opened a restaurant on New York's Shelter Island

A view of Léon 1909, art dealer Robert Mnuchin and his daughter Valerie Mnuchin's new restaurant on Shelter Island, New York. Courtesy Léon 1909
Manhattan dealer Robert Mnuchin is the latest art market power player to enter the restaurant business, opening a French-Italian eatery with his daughter Valerie Mnuchin on New York's Shelter Island, a secluded spot nestled between the north and south forks of Long Island.
Léon 1909 is open for its first full summer after opening late last season in a former bank building. The restaurant is named for Robert’s father, who was born in 1909 and whose love for trips to Europe’s Mediterranean coast inspired the restaurant’s setting. A framed portrait of him hangs in the restaurant.
The Mnuchins' restaurant serves French and Italian cuisine using regional ingredients with a wood-burning hearth at the centre of the restaurant. It’s one of several new or refurbished restaurants to open on the island since the Covid-19 pandemic brought an influx of transplants and seasonal residents from New York City.
"We wanted to make something that would be a sort of community hub, open year-round," Valerie told North Forker last year.
Robert Mnuchin isn’t the first blue-chip dealer to venture into the restaurant business. Megadealer Larry Gagosian is a part-owner of Kappo Masa, the high-end sushi restaurant located beneath his Madison Avenue gallery. Last month, Swiss dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth announced they would open a restaurant and bar in New York's Soho neighborhood, across the street from a new Hauser & Wirth space, the dealers' third in the city. The Wirths already operate a handful of restaurants and pubs in the US and the UK.
Mnuchin is no stranger to watching his children step into high-pressure ventures: Valerie's half-brother Steven served as treasury secretary under US president Donald Trump.

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