Amy Knoll Fraser
Photo: courtesy of Grace
After seven years on Beverly Boulevard, LA's Grace Restaurant is preparing to move Downtown in fall 2010. For those of us who had long written off the area as a culinary black hole, it's a sobering notion – in addition to a number of new openings, restaurants from the Westside are actually migrating to the rough streets of Old Los Angeles.
Grace's new home, St. Vibiana Cathedral, which dates back to 1876, narrowly avoided the wrecking ball in 1996 before being saved by developers Tom Gilmore and Richard Weintraub. In the decade since, the cathedral has turned into one of Downtown's destination event spaces. We asked Grace co-owner Amy Knoll Fraser – wife of, and partner with, chef Neal Fraser – about the process of moving from an orthodox Jewish neighborhood to a venerable Catholic church.
Merrill Shindler: How did you discover that St. Vibiana was available?
Amy Knoll Fraser: It happened quite by accident. We were doing a catering event at St. Vibiana. I took a tour, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I knew we had to do this. But we were too involved with opening bld. So, we put off any thoughts about it for a long time. But I had fallen in love with it.
MS: It can't be easy moving into a church that's 133 years old.
AKF: The cathedral was completed in 1876, but the refectory was built in the 1930s. So, it's a pretty substantial Spanish-Baroque concrete building. There's not a lot of structural work to be done – except that we've got to add on a new two-story building to house the kitchen.
MS: Aren't there things you have to do when you move into a church? I thought there was a decommissioning ceremony. Maybe not bell, book and candle, but something?
AKF: As it turns out, no ceremony is required. When Tom Gilmore and Richard Weintraub purchased the building in 1996, they restored it and did a retrofit. At the same time, they removed most of the religious elements. It was decommissioned. Now, it's just a building with history.
MS: No ghosts?
AKF: It doesn't feel haunted at all.
MS: And who was St. Vibiana? I get the feeling she's not the Patron Saint of Sous-Chefs.
AKF: St. Vibiana has an interesting story. She's actually the Patron Saint of Nobodies; no one knows how she became a martyr. Her remains were discovered in the 1800s. She was discovered in a church catacomb in Rome – she had a laurel around her head that indicated she was a virgin martyr. Apparently her parents had been martyred, and she was forced into prostitution. When she refused, she was sent to a mental asylum, where she was flogged to death. Her remains were in the old cathedral, and now they're in the new cathedral just a few blocks away.
MS: How did she get from Rome to Los Angeles?
AKF: The Bishop of Los Angeles brought her remains over, so the cathedral could be named after her. This is the only church named for St. Vibiana. She's only known in Los Angeles.
MS: Why aren't you keeping the original Grace open after you move Downtown?
AKF: For us, there can never be two Grace Restaurants. We're very hands on. We need to be present, working with our staff everyday. If there were two Graces, one of them would suffer.
MS: Will the menu change at all?
AKF: It will be Neal's style of food, which means it's always changing, always evolving. There'll also be four private dining rooms, where we can go a little crazy with special menus, carving carts and the like. And there'll be a separate menu for the bar. It's "Grace, The Next Generation."
MS: And it's "Grace Goes Downtown."
AKF: It's really fantastic to be part of Downtown. There's so much positive creative energy. It's palpable, you can feel it on every block.
MS: Fall of 2010 is just one year away – can you do it?
AKF: If all goes well we will. But you know how these things go.
MS: Yes. Let us pray…
– Merrill Shindler