An evening at Jubilee Suites on Mobile Bay recently paired two pleasures that rarely share a calendar: a four-course pasta dinner and a guided painting session. The combination is the invention of MJ Ferraro and her husband, Chef Dominic Ferraro, transplants from Rhode Island who brought their unusual partnership to the coastal area — she paints, he cooks, and guests do both.
The event, called Pasta and Paint, unfolded across two floors of the bayfront property. Dinner was served at a long table in the main dining room, where the Mobile Bay view competes with the food. The menu that night: Caesar salad, bruschetta and shareable plates of roasted vegetables to start, followed by two pastas — farfalle with shrimp and pesto, and penne puttanesca — both finished with freshly grated parmesan. Dessert was a rich lemon-lime custard tart.
Then the party moved upstairs, where MJ had set up a painting studio in another room with another view of the water. Each place held a canvas on an easel, a palette of acrylic paint and three brushes of different sizes. Over the next hour, she guided the group step by step through a coastal scene — water, sky, a sailboat and a pier — saving the sunset for last.
“Painting a sunset was my favorite part,” one participant said, “because the colors of pink and orange above the blues and greens of the water complement each other” — the familiar Gulf Coast palette every attendee recognized from the window. The fascination of the evening, the same guest noted, was seeing how differently each painter interpreted the identical scene. No two canvases left the room alike.
The cook half of the partnership
Chef Dominic Ferraro trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, earning a culinary degree before working in restaurants across New England. He spent years as catering director at the University of Rhode Island, leaving that post in 2019. His range covers many cuisines, but his specialty is Mediterranean food — a fit for the olive oil, seafood and vegetable-driven menus of the Pasta and Paint dinners.
The Ferraros moved to the coastal area roughly six months before their first local events, part of a familiar migration: New England winters traded for Mobile Bay. The Gulf Coast’s restaurant scene gave Dominic a market for his cooking, and Jubilee Suites — with its water views and generous common rooms — proved the right venue for the format, which needs both a dining space and a studio.
The painter half
MJ Ferraro’s artistic journey started on a whim — she bought paints and canvas, and discovered a talent she didn’t know she had. Her work has since been exhibited in galleries across Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and most recently in Alabama at the Dauphin Island Art Gallery. She is a member of the Mobile Art Society and painted a utility box on Saint Louis Street in downtown Mobile as part of a public beautification project — one of the small, colorful interventions that have been spreading through the city’s streets.
As a teacher she earns consistent praise from first-time painters. Her method — patient demonstration, then circulation around the room — is designed for people who have not touched a brush since elementary school. Every guest leaves with a finished canvas and, if the first Fairhope-area sessions are any guide, a story about the parts that went hilariously wrong before they went right.
A party format built for any gathering
Pasta and Paint is priced at $50 per person, which covers the pasta dinner and all art supplies. The couple will bring the event to a host’s location, which opens the format to graduation parties, girls’ nights out, family reunions, book clubs, church groups and corporate gatherings. All the host provides is tables, chairs and guests.
The concept sits comfortably in a Gulf Coast tradition of paint-and-sip socials, but the full dinner component — a real, chef-cooked, multi-course meal rather than snacks — sets it apart. Guests eat like they’ve been invited to someone’s home, then paint like they’re at a friend’s kitchen table. For visitors staying at Jubilee Suites, the evening doubles as an activity and a dinner reservation rolled into one.
For the Ferraros, the business is a natural extension of their two careers and a reason to keep meeting their new neighbors. Six months in, the coastal area has responded the way it tends to respond to events that combine food, water views and something to take home: with full attendance and full canvases.