The SoCal Restaurant Show is live from the West Rift Manhattan Beach, an autographed collection hotel. Manhattan Beach is the home of the twice-monthly Coffee with the Mayor. He is the special 12th anniversary edition of the SoCal Restaurant Show. I can't really believe it. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce. I'm Andy Harris, the Executive Producer and co-host of the show. Welcome. Thanks for sharing part of your Saturday morning with us. We appreciate it. Particularly for those that have been with us since the beginning, 12 years. I think that impresses us, but glad to have you out there. And we are trying to profile some of the celebrity chefs that are part of this evening's grand tasting for the Manhattan Beach Food and Wine. And sitting across from me is the host chef of Manhattan Beach Food and Wine, who actually has some connections to Manhattan Beach because he's done some consulting projects here over the years. So the area is no stranger to him, but we're talking about a chef and restaurateur, Neil Frazier. You know him best from Red Bird and Viviana in downtown LA. One of the creative chefs that in the beginning realized the potential for downtown LA when I think Neil would agree there were a lot of doubting Thomases and also was able to save a very historic building in the city of Los Angeles that actually was in the process of being demolished. And with that as background, it is a pleasure to welcome Neil Frazier back to the show. Neil, good morning. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Neil again, this event, Manhattan Beach Food and Wine, you are definitely a huge part of and putting it all together. You cooked last night. You're coming back again tonight to cook again. Let's first tease our audience, if you will, about what you're going to be preparing for tonight. Then we'll give them a little history of what you did last night. Sure. Last night I did a grilled New Caledonian shrimp with a watermelon salad with kind of a beat in these flavors. Chef, any idea how many portions you put out there because you had lines for the entire evening? I think we were just moving slow. We were trying to grill the shrimp to order about a very small grill. I think we did about 600 portions. A lot. That definitely is impressive and it's going to be a bigger night tonight because it's Saturday night and it's the grand tasting and you're not competing with the Dodgers. No, we're not. Then we understand-- For one night. Then we understand there is a Billy Joel concert. I would say there's 16 million people in the LA metro area. Everybody can't watch the Billy Joel show or go to the Dodger game. I know, but let's just hope they're all food fans. There you go, Neil. That's for sure. Neil, when you first were asked to get involved in this event, what was going through your head because chefs and restaurateurs are invited to participate in charity food events almost every day of the week. You're very involved in the community. You have that tradition. You support a number of causes, but you can only give so much and you only have so much time. I know one of the factors was, and we're going to get into this when we speak with Lisa Fontanessi after you, who is the LA director for CCAP, you're a big CCAP supporter, so I know that was one aspect of this, but what else went into your thinking process because, again, you've been a major part of this event. One could say that you did a lot of the chef wrangling. I did 90% of the chef wrangling. I was very concerned about coming into David the flavor in Sherry Yard's backyard and being a carpet beggar, so I thought it was very important for them to be front and center as well because they are a big part of this community and have been for a very long time. I was fortunate to work with the Zisless group with Mike Zisless, I guess it was 13 or 14 years ago on the Strandhouse, and I'm currently working at Bruco on the Manhattan Beach Boulevard as well, so I had some kind of inklings of what the community was like, and if it shows from last night, the community was really ready to accept a food and wine event that was in Manhattan Beach and about Manhattan Beach, and I think they really celebrated that. I don't want to say I was impressed because I knew the people were here, but it's like people showed up and it was a lot of people I knew, a lot of people I didn't, but a lot of people that were locals, which is kind of what you want for a food and wine event. You want people to really embrace it as opposed to feeling like it's a nuisance in some way, like why are all these people in my backyard kind of thing? Well, Neil, something I've noticed at some of the bigger food festivals earlier this year is the energy level just isn't there, as I've seen in some of the past years, and it's the energy level on the part of the chefs, but also the energy level on the part of the guests, and totally different last night at Manhattan Beach Food and Wine, a lot of your brethren in the chefs community, they were out in front of their booth meeting and greeting all the guests, having a good time, seeing people that they haven't seen in a while, and genuinely enjoying themselves, and the energy level of the attendees was way up there, so you know, this is, they say, a beautiful thing to see. No, I think you put the right people group together, I think that they feel good around each other. I think when people feel like strangers, I think that feels like that's what they give off, and you know, a lot of the people that, you know, that we invited that said yes or, you know, personal friends of mine, and you know, it's, you know, COVID did a number on all of us, and I think that, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of times, you remember we're like right after COVID, like I'd get, you know, whatever, 100 people together for an event at Viviana Redbird, and people look at each other like they're kind of like looking like, you know, they're picking up rocks, like looking underneath, like, is this safe to go out now? And people are definitely wanting to go out, but I think it's a matter of creating that community, and I think that community already exists to man beach, so it's kind of like, you know, laying it on top of something that's already there, it's not like, it's not a far stretch, and I think that just like everybody else, everybody gets caught in their groove and their life, and they're driving their kids to school and doing whatever they is, whatever they're doing, and I think the community really embraced that, so I think that's, you know, part of what it was, is that the locals were here, and they were happy and proud to be there. Well, and I think we're also going to see tonight, because there are going to be even more people, you know, Saturday night is the traditional night when you go out for a wonderful night out, so Neil, all I can say is, is be ready, and I know you will, but it's part of it. Let's back up a little bit, and let's talk about Redbird and the Brianna. This has got to be in terms of, from a chef's and a restaurateur's point of view, this was a property that when you arrived, was severely dilapidated, I mean, it was ready to be demolished, and for the Brianna, they actually had started demolition in terms of just maintaining the physical plant, particularly on what was the cathedral side, how difficult it challenges that, because I know you had to build a kitchen there too, but in terms of just maintaining it. Well, we have a facilities manager, Cesar LaPapa, and that's his job is to basically, you know, oversee the facility, and it's a lot, you know, it's, when we look at our P&L and the amount of energy and money we spend on just, you know, you know, taking care of the space is a lot, and we have three and a half acres of space, and, you know, when we first saw the space, it was just a really great opportunity to do something that was kind of bigger than us, and, you know, something that had history that wasn't necessarily a restaurant, it's always kind of nice when you go in and kind of have a success out of the, you know, out of the bag, I mean, obviously there's a lot of restaurants in L.A. that are a third or fourth or fifth iteration, and they finally find their stride. You know, for us, we're occupying, you know, basically an abandoned building, and the first event we did there, we had to rent air conditioning, bathrooms, a kitchen, you know, I think it was $10,000 for the air conditioning, and we did a party there for IBM, and kind of went after it, and then, you know, that was almost 15 years ago, and, you know, to me, it's always about creating something that's bigger than myself, I think that's why charity work is important, because you're kind of giving back to something that hopefully is bigger than yourself and lives on beyond your legacy. I do think about legacy a lot, I mean, I'm 55 years old, I started cooking when I was 20, I mean, it's a long time to be doing something, and, you know, I could-- Particularly a business that is demanding and time-consuming, Neil, is this one is, I mean, it wears. And demoralizing, you know, it's not a, you know, it's not a soccer game where everybody gets a medal at the end of the thing, it's like, you know, everybody gets punched in the face at the end and, like, thrown down the stairs, and then, it's kind of like, do you want to get back up or not? And to me, it's always been something I really is near and dear to my heart, and I think that, you know, what Vivian and Redbird really allow me to do as a chef and a person, and, you know, listen to Chris Cosentino talking about being ADD or ADHD is like, you can kind of take all those little things and, like, somehow it all works, because I think that if I did the same thing every day the same way, I would have given up a long time ago, you know, and I think that I was listening to Marco Pierre White on some podcast the other day and he was talking about, you know, having a Michelin 3-star restaurant and how boring it was, because it was, like, so technically doing exactly the same thing every day in exactly the same way in order to get the exact same results, and we do something different almost every day, you know, and it's like, if you look to my calendar from whatever Monday of this week until, you know, Sunday of next week, you know, we have different stuff every day, we have different events, you know, we're hoping, we're hosting a, a guest chef doing a caviar event on Monday night, I'm doing a food wine festival, I'm doing a, a food wine dinner on Sunday night, it kind of keeps me engaged and it's also, you know, doing this long enough, you know, and working for, you know, two of the kind of the pillars of, you know, Angelina Cuisine, which was funny enough, not too Angelina's, but Wolfgang Puck and Joachina Spichal and, you know, we really started off our careers really doing things other than working in the restaurant, you know, my first job at Pino Bistro when I graduated from CIA, I think it worked 20 hours, and we set up for the Meals and Meals after party, I did an off-site, and we did a tasting for like the regular menu on the same day, and I was like, this is insane, you know, how do you do that? And it's like, you do all those things because if you don't, you can't be successful, you know, you, it's very hard, I mean, there's, you know, it's very, you know, Michael Simmeristi is an anomaly, like to have one restaurant that, that, you know, is able to survive that long at the level it has, it's not, there aren't 20 of those restaurants, there's really one that I can think of, and it's Providence, you know, even Elise, like Josiah does a lot of other things, I mean, obviously Michael has Connie and Ted's, but it's like, those things are really hard to do, and again, you know, talking about, you know, Providence, where is that? It's in the old patina restaurant, you know, it's like, you know, he had to take a space and like, you know, resurrect it into something else, not that the patina needed to resurrecting, but it's interesting how all that stuff and that legacy works and how, you know, just kind of luck and magic. Well, and at Providence, they do reinvent themselves periodically, you know, during the run of Providence, that restaurant has been renovated massively twice. The kitchen has been remodeled and, you know, as you're suggesting, it's a very expensive proposition to be able to do those things. So, yeah, in Newland, the minute we have left, I don't want to neglect, you have a great bar and wine program at Redbird. Let's give a little due to that because, you know, you got a great wine director and you got a great beverage manager. Yeah, I mean, our beverage manager, Tobin Shea, has been with us since day one. And, you know, I always say, I think we do good on the food, I think we do as well, if not better on the cocktails. And if you ever get the opportunity to sit at our bar and talk to Tobin or his team, you know, he is the most versed person that I've ever met on cocktails and cocktail culture and spirits. And, you know, I always say, like, you know, if you looked at a bottle of compari, he knows exactly the day where they, you know, they start making the color out of beetles, you know, and I think that that shows, and Chris Duggan, who is our new-ish wine director, does a really great job of managing our list and really finding wines that are delicious and approachable. And I think that that's kind of the whole approach we do with everything we try to do, is try to make everything approachable and, you know, wine and, you know, cocktails for that matter can be so intimidating to people to kind of put it in a way that people really understand is kind of what we're trying to do. And I think that Chris and Tobin do a great job with them. Niels, we need to say goodbye, what is the one best website to get everything our listeners need to know about Redbird? I don't know. I guess Redbird.LA or Viviano.com, all my social media is my name, Neil Fraser. Yeah, I'm not a huge, you know, I'm not trying to be an influencer, but I'm definitely, you know, on Instagram and Facebook, so I'm not hard to find. Ladies and gentlemen, Chef Neil Fraser, the Hoshaf for Manhattan Beach Food and Wine. We will see him a 10 minute walk down the street this evening at his booth. Thanks for the time, Neil. Thanks for having me. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. It is our 12th anniversary show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Proteus. It's our top of the hour break when we return, Lisa Fontanesce, the LA director for the Careers Through Culinary Arts program. Give us a couple of minutes, we'll be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING]
