The Knife

How to run a great restaurant: The Knife's Top Five

 

Restaurant years should be measured like dog years. Supposedly 80% of them close before the five-year mark, which is why the five-year anniversary of Grace Restaurant (celebrated in house Monday night) is such a big damn deal. A bigger damn deal: Owners Neal Fraser and Amy Knoll Fraser got married two weeks after Grace opened. Bigger still, they opened another restaurant, BLD, about two years ago. Biggest of all: The Frasers are still married.

All of which got me thinking: Why Grace? The food is great, but that's never been enough. The location is only OK (and was less so when they took the space). And Neal is no Wolfgang Puck; he'll make the rounds in his dining room, but anyone who looks at him expecting to receive the jolly-chef-song-and-dance will be rewarded with a pained smile. (And God bless him for that.)

So here are the Knife's top five reasons why Grace has been around for five years and stands to thrive for many more.

1. The courage of his convictions. Neal prepares what he finds interesting. This can mean locally sourced Santa Barbara prawns, serving water that's filtered instead of bottled, seared tempeh, Parmesan farro (which is like risotto with a conscience) or a black-chickpea salad with anchovies, which I ate at his bar a few weeks ago. It was really weird and it was really good; essentially, it was his way of having fun with the flavors of a Caesar salad. Of course, execution here is everything, but just as important is honoring his own instincts and allowing for inspiration, rather than dictation, by outside influences.

2. It's a restaurant, dammit. And in LA, that's a smart and counterintuitive thing. Opening any restaurant is an act of bravery, but in this city it takes real cojones to open a fine-dining spot that's "just" a restaurant, not a restaurant-lounge, or a tapas bar, or a small plates experience. Yes, there's a bar at Grace with a little lounge area, but it's the kind that restaurants used to have, when "Would you like a seat in the lounge?" meant you might want a glass of wine before your table was ready. 'Course, if you want to eat in the bar they'll be more than happy to whip out a placemat, but no one's going to mistake Grace for anything other than an honest-to-God restaurant.

Bottled water wants to be free.

The best argument against paying for bottled water: It's pretty, it's cold, it's filtered and it tastes good. And nothing gets thrown away. This one comes from Royal Clayton's; Neal Fraser at Grace filters his water by reverse osmosis and serves it in a pitcher that looks something like this. Classy dude.

Royal Clayton's, 1855 Industrial St. (213) 622-0512
Grace, 7360 Beverly Blvd. (323) 934-4400

Grace goes local, you benefit.

This is a sauteed Santa Barbara prawn, served with purple cauliflower and sea urchin emulsion. It was was the first course in what Grace chef-owner Neal Fraser calls Close to Home, a Tuesday-Thursday tasting menu in which 90% of the ingredients come from within a 400-mile radius. Close to Home makes a better environmental argument than Al Gore or Leonardo DiCaprio: Smaller carbon footprints taste really good.

Grace, 7360 Beverly Blvd. (323) 934-4400