Grace under pressure

It’s late October 2002, and Neal Fraser is walking around a room full of plaster dust. His restaurant, Grace, was supposed to open a month ago, but none of the fixtures are in, the guy who was supposed to do the ceiling didn’t show up, again, and an investor just dropped out. Normally unflappable, even Fraser is finding the process nerve-racking.

“Put it this way,” he says, surveying the still-unpainted walls. “I ice myself down every night so I don’t spontaneously combust.”

Grace eventually did open, on Los Angeles’ newest Restaurant Row -- Beverly Boulevard between Fairfax and La Brea, which in the past two years has seen Angelini Osteria, Opaline and Buddha’s Belly joining Cobras and Matadors, Ita Cho and the perennially popular margarita mecca, El Coyote.

It took over the space that was Muse, the ‘80s hot spot with the chilly postmodern facade, and is the first created by chef Neal Fraser, who in the mid-’90s made his name as the chef of Boxer (now Cobras and Matadors) before moving on to Rix and Jimmy’s.

“I’ve been wanting to open my own restaurant since high school. My real story is I failed my first class at San Francisco State. I was depressed; I’d just crashed my buddy’s FZR600 Yamaha. I was riding down the escalator at Stone Hills mall, wondering what I was going to do with my life, and by the time I got to the bottom, I knew: I wanted to open a restaurant. I had my parents [Fraser’s dad is Emmy Award-winning composer Ian Fraser; his mother is a psychotherapist] to thank for this; they always told me not to go for the money but to go for what I love, and everything will fall into place.”

In January 2002, after a year consulting and creating menus for such places as Maple Drive and Deep, Fraser took the plunge and signed escrow papers for his own place. Here is his journey from conception through “Check, please.”

February 2002

Fraser serves a special Valentine’s Day dinner at Muse: foie gras seared just enough to bring out its hazelnuttiness and remain custardy within, and a tender filet of beef topped with a great, melting gob of Gorgonzola. The setting does not complement the meal. Built in 1981, Muse appears played out, the banquettes grubby, the plywood walls warped, the exposed beams dated. It is the last meal served under the name.

“It will be called Grace, for my daughter,” says Fraser, of his 11-year-old. He’s 33, with the mien of a SoCal surfer -- rumpled T-shirt, tousled hair -- but the concentration of someone who can put out 120 dinners a night for years on end. “If reconstruction starts immediately, we’ll open in the fall.”

April 2002

Fraser and his partners in Grace, Amy Knoll (his fiancee) and Richard Drapkin, stand in the 3,700-square-foot space. The hope is to open the restaurant in mid-September. With the exception of some carpeting having been torn up, Muse has morphed toward Grace not at all.

It is quickly apparent that the three have different ideas. Knoll would like things new and clean; Drapkin is looking to save money; and Fraser (who says he loves to “dumpster-dive”) wants to do everything himself.

Beneath the punk-rock, can-do attitude is a detail freak. When asked what he wants to see change, Fraser does not hesitate. “Lose the banquette below the front window, square out the bar, change the entrance, have more low tables and couches in the bar area, change the colors, integrate a coat check area, maybe knock down these pillars, extend the kitchen 2 feet, have some hardwood floor, some carpet, maybe some painted concrete, cut holes in the walls, get rid of the curved walls. Oh, and maybe put up some fabrics, to warm up the space.”

Says Drapkin: “And the initial budget, for design fees and furniture, lighting, but not including the kitchen, we’d like to keep under a hundred thousand.”

The conversation makes one appreciate that the gestalt of the place must be decided now. As with building a ship, if the plans are off a fraction of a degree, the finished product will list and perhaps sink. The fatal flaw may not be something as obvious (and replaceable) as annoying music or a rude server, but as subtle as a table that feels too high, a fork that sits oddly in the mouth. While the quality of the food may be the star, it is the amalgam of design and props, color and maneuverability that makes the first impression, and it all needs to be decided now, before a single saucepan hits the stove.

Which is one of the reasons Drapkin, who’s been in the restaurant business 25 years, is on board. “Richard is acting as our mentor and our deal maker,” Knoll says. “He knows all the things that we don’t.”

May 2002

Though a backer has dropped out and the Grace team is looking for more financing, they give interior designer Elyse Grinstein a tour of the space. Grinstein, whose previous restaurants include Chaya Venice, asks, “Why are you opening on this section of Beverly?”

“I grew up two miles from here,” Fraser says. “I went to Fairfax High; I cooked at Boxer for three years. The location makes sense to me.”

“And what about acoustics?” she asks, glancing at the high ceiling. “A place like this can get loud.”

“We want the room to have a buzz and feel like it’s populated,” Drapkin says.

Grinstein nods. “A bar scene.”

Fraser: “But not too loud. I want my parents to be able to come and not have to use a megaphone.”

“And your price points?” Grinstein asks.

“Modest,” Fraser says. “$7 to $15 for apps; entrees, $17 to $30. And I want to serve a lot of entrees in appetizer portions. I have a friend who eats alone a lot; I want him to be able to try the suckling pig but not have to pay $27 for it.”

August 2002

The tabletops have been torn off, but otherwise nothing in Grace has changed. Michael Berman -- a designer known for his furniture but who has never designed a restaurant -- lights a candle before an arrangement of drawings, tableware and photos.

“I don’t want people leaving the restaurant talking about the decor,” he says. “What you see here has undergone a lot of development through subtraction.” His finger traces floor plans where there will be chow tables (restaurant-speak for tables for two) and bus stations. He shows off fabrics and a card-size sample of a high-performance resin. “I want to use this product in the light fixtures,” he says, tilting the sample tile to show off its moony luminosity.

Considering it’s nearly 100 degrees and quite clearly Grace will not meet its anticipated September opening, it is a very civil meeting.

It is not, however, without creative differences: the width of the bar stools, whether the restroom doors should be tufted. Berman’s idea for bathroom taps, inspired by “the aerodynamic styling of luxury travel in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” receives a low response. And Fraser may love cloches (the silver domes that are lifted at table), but at $450 each, they won’t be using them.

One big idea is the wine wall. “We’ll put it in the center, so when you walk in, you have this really serious wall of wine,” Berman says.

Knoll and Fraser love it.

September 2002

“I keep trying to explain to people that I want a socialist restaurant,” says Knoll. “I don’t want any kind of exclusivity at all.” She, Fraser and fellow restaurateur Steven Arroyo (Cobras and Matadors, the Hillmont) are dining at Red Pearl Kitchen in Huntington Beach.

“We’re eating out four nights a week,” Fraser says, “which is something I can’t do when I’m cooking.”

October 2002

“Whoa,” says Drapkin, looking over the revised interior budget. He, Fraser, Knoll and the contractors are sitting at a makeshift table. They’re currently $30,000 over budget. The tally makes Fraser nervous.

“We need to cut it,” he says.

“What you need to do is get this place open and make it back on the food,” says the contractor.

“It’s hard on Neal because he really hasn’t had his own kitchen in three years,” says Knoll, and one remembers that the point of all this is so he can cook.

Drapkin grabs a bottle of water -- and picks up a sledgehammer. “This is what we do to relieve stress,” he says, smacking two holes in the drywall. Meanwhile, Fraser and Berman begin slashing the budget.

December 2002

As other hotly anticipated restaurants open -- Steven Arroyo’s Cobra Lily, Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne’s A.O.C. and David Roshoff’s Opaline, a block from Grace -- Fraser and Knoll make plans to go to New York to cater a series of parties, and for their May wedding.

“We’ll have the reception at Grace,” Fraser says. “If we’re open.”

January 2003

“We’re about a month away,” Fraser says. The Muse sign is down; there are new windows and a menu box by the front door. While the interior still looks a shambles, sounds like a dentist’s office and smells of hot welding, Fraser says things are going great. Not that he hasn’t had to let some things go.

“The entryway was going to be walnut; now it’s stucco,” he says. “And I’m waiting on some things, like an ice cream machine. What I wanted most was the wine wall -- and we have that. Though not, as we’d planned, with the rounded edge, for $18,000, but a right angle, which is five and change. I can live with all this.”

Jan. 24

Knoll and Drapkin interview prospective servers in Drapkin’s Santa Monica office. Knoll put an ad on www.craigslist.org and got 300 answers.

“The first guy showed up at 9 in the morning, eager, well spoken, fluent in French, Portuguese and Spanish,” Drapkin says. “He doesn’t have much experience, but he was wonderful and gentle.”

“And he wrote a great cover letter,” Knoll says. “I love a good cover letter.”

Feb. 21

It’s 8:15 p.m., and though Grace will not open for another week, the dining room is full, for one in a series of dinners Fraser is serving to get the cooks and floor staff up to speed.

The menu is ambitious: pumpkin and sea urchin risotto, wild boar with spaetzle and violet mustard, and a marzipan and kumquat terrine. As important is the attention paid to the little things: The rolls are tender and warm, the cutlery is specific, and coffee is served in individual stainless steel presses so reflective that they can be used to apply one’s postprandial lip gloss.

Feb. 26

Opening night, and by 8 p.m., every table but one is taken. Knoll seats people, busses dishes and ferries guests’ jackets from the bar.

“We’re deliberately trying to slow things down,” she says, walking a party of six to the last empty table.

Fraser appears in his chef’s whites. “It’s not as crazy as it looks,” he says, before ducking back into the kitchen.

The crowd is a mix of insiders -- Jonathan Kent from Maestro’s and Kent Wagerman from Josie sit at the bar -- and those who just wandered in.

“Do you know the word ‘syzygy’?” Drapkin asks. “It’s when the planets line up. That’s what it feels like. This part of Beverly Boulevard is happening right now, and we’re right in the middle of it.”

Mid-July

Nearly five months after opening, Grace is still packed, routinely serving 150 dinners a night. Although Fraser may not have wanted a bar scene, he’s got one, as well as a fan base of foodies, wine lovers and those curious about the new place on Beverly. Fraser is again serene.

“It’s going very well,” Fraser says. “I can’t complain.... We’ve had some growing pains, as I think we should. We’ve had maybe five slow nights.” Fraser then heads for the kitchen. It’s time to prep for dinner.

*

Grace

Where: 7360 Beverly Blvd., L.A.

When: Tuesdays-Thursdays, 6-10:30 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays, 6-11 p.m.; Sundays, 6-10 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Info: (323) 934-4400