Clouds part and angels sing: Grace restaurant reveals plans for St. Vibiana Cathedral

What better name than Grace for a restaurant moving into the former rectory of 133-year-old St. Vibiana Cathedral downtown?

If all goes as scheduled, the 6-year-old restaurant currently on Beverly Boulevard will have moved into its new Spanish Baroque home, formerly occupied by parish priests, by the end of next year. Owners Neal Fraser and Amy Knoll Fraser have big plans for the space, what might be the most stunning location for a restaurant in L.A.

The restaurant will include: a 100-seat main dining room; a dining courtyard (pictured above, the fountain will be removed) with a 30-foot bar, to be covered by a glass ceiling; four private dining rooms upstairs with balconies overlooking the courtyard (each with its own bathroom); a private dining room in the wine cellar; and a separate, second-floor bar and lounge, named the Rectory, with a terrace that has a view of both the courtyard and the towering cupola that was returned to the church after the building was almost demolished. There are hand-painted ceilings, arched walkways, French doors, beamed ceilings, 19th century ironwork.

The Frasers have negotiated for the space with Vibiana developer Tom Gilmore, who restored the nearly doomed cathedral and transformed it into an event space. 

"It's something we've been talking about doing since June of last year," says Knoll Fraser. "When I walked into the rectory, I just got chills and knew I had to do this space."

The Frasers say they are in the process of raising $2.5 million for the planned restaurant. They are considering at some point opening a mini BLD, their more casual breakfast-lunch-dinner restaurant, also located on Beverly Boulevard. (One is also in the works for Pasadena, but "it's going slowly," Knoll Fraser says.) Designers of the future Grace will be Hermosillo & Ross; the architect will be Antonio Muniz.

Chef Neal Fraser says the main dining room will be approachable, "somewhere you can even just come for lunch and have an entree salad and an iced tea," but his plans for the private dining rooms are more elaborate. The private dining rooms are former clergy residences that will be furnished with estate pieces, "a great showcase for something spectacular," Fraser says. "We can do tasting menus, game dinners, whole roasted suckling pigs carved right there, come through with the cheese cart, we'll do French table service" (in which a waiter serves food from platters onto each diner's plate).  

It sounds like heaven.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos: Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[mifami]

This is just another example of the incredible change and growth in the Civic Center. St. Vibiana's was spectacular always, now it will be divine. Can't wait.

[mattatouille]

i'm thrilled to see Fraser moving Grace here, but also sad because I really liked the Beverly Location. It's one of my favorite restaurants in the city, just based on decor and service, though the food is excellent as well.

[Nola Quinn]

I was baptised at St. Vibiana's Cathedral in June 1944. I still have the black and white photograph of that day, framed and on the dresser in my bedroom with a few other family pictures from my childhood. In the baptism picture, taken on the steps of St. Vibiana's in front of the big church doors, my mother is holding me in her arms. I was already 6 months old, a mini-scandal in my family at the time. My Protestant mother was making a statement to my Irish grandmother about who, exactly, made the decisions about when I was (or wasn't) going to be baptised. My two older sisters, 2-1/2 and 3-1/2, are next to her. My father is behind my mother. My father's brother is in his Air Force uniform looking more handsome than he ever did in real life. His ultra-sexy wife, my Godmother, wore a Betty Grable-like Hollywood dress that showed off her legs to great advantage. I'm glad the Cathedral is still standing. I can hardly wait to go to Grace once it's open. I wonder if I will feel the presence of family members now long gone....

[tracy]

Makes me think of CHIJMES in Singapore. Former convent (Convent of the Heart of the Infant Jesus and Mary), now restaurant row. Beautiful event place.

But why remove the fountain?

[kristasimmons]

I've died and gone to heaven. This is one of my favorite spaces downtown, and Neal one of my fav chefs. This is going to be absolutely ethereal.