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Grisette owners and partners Donnie (left) and Megan Glass
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Grisette is located at 3119 E. Marshall St.
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The wall near the bar is decorated with photos of culinary greats including Alice Waters, Anthony Bourdain and James Beard.
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The bar area of Grisette
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A photo of hockey commentators Craig Laughlin and Joe Beninati is placed on a shelf inside Grisette, an ode to Donnie's love of hockey and the Washington Capitals; in high school he even served as the Caps' mascot, Slapshot.
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Shelves behind the bar house books and duck decoys.
The first time I met chef and restaurateur Donnie Glass of the forthcoming Grisette, it was last summer and the Church Hill restaurant was expected to open that September.
Since our initial meeting, Glass and I have exchanged close to 30 emails and met multiple times. He has hosted a series of pop-ups, ditched his original dream of having live fire in the restaurant and, after months of conceiving a menu and then reflecting upon it, returned to the drawing board.
Glass, along with his fellow owners, wife Megan and business partner Andy McClure, also bid farewell to the restaurant's original location at 401 N. 27th St., a space believed to be the oldest commercial building in the city.
Now, a year later, the trio are set to debut their Southern- and French-tinged eatery within the week at 3119 E. Marshall St.
"Eventually you want to do your own thing; this was a natural progression," says Glass, a Johnson & Wales and VMI graduate, of his first restaurant. The majority of Glass' kitchen work has been in New England restaurants, followed by an executive chef position at Public Fish & Oyster in Charlottesville, after which he and Megan departed for a two-year stint on Martha’s Vineyard before landing in Richmond.
Given that the 2018 Elby award-winner for Restaurant of the Year, Dutch & Co.; Lee Gregory’s Alewife, recognized as one of the best new restaurants in the country by GQ magazine; and The Roosevelt, instrumental in putting Richmond on the national dining map, are all within blocks of the new restaurant, Glass asked himself, "What do we want to be that other people aren’t?”
"When I wrote the first menu, it looked exactly like Dutch & Co., and The Roosevelt’s, and a little bit like Alewife’s,” he says. “We’re all 30-something-year-old white guy chefs in the Mid-Atlantic and have similar influences. … My thought was, how can I make this business work and still be satisfied as a chef?”
For Glass, whose grandparents are from Richmond, being satisfied and standing out meant challenging himself and his team to home in on a concept that is approachable and flexible and scale back their original ideas — reducing a 4-ounce serving of foie gras to 1 1/2, a full duck breast to a duck pasta dish and a $32 rib-eye dish to steak frites for $18.
“I think that’s what good cooks do, take ingredients that are less expensive or use less, and with your techniques and knowledge turn them into something delicious,” Glass says.
Entrees at Grisette, apart from daily specials, currently do not exceed $20. The wine list is an intriguing collection of offerings from smaller, family-owned vintners that the team curated after a year of searching and “kissing a lot of frogs,” and the cocktail menu is comprised of libations from the mind of 11-year Can Can veteran and Beverage Director Caleb Donovan, all of which are $9 or below.
“We have to be all in, conceptually,” explains Glass.
Adds Megan, a University of Virginia graduate who was most recently a line cook at Lemaire, “I had a chef tell me, it seems like it’ll be really easy to be creative when you have everything available and the best ingredients, but really, creativity flourishes when you force yourself to be in a box and give yourself barriers and then try to fight against them.”
A major focus at the restaurant is its cheese and charcuterie program. Diners can turn to a chalkboard and choose among an assortment of five to eight cheeses. All breads, pasta, jams and pickles that accompany the cheese or charcuterie boards will be made in house.
For the opening menu, a dish of radishes, rye, butter and salt, as well as a tomato tart with sheep’s ricotta and a green salad, will be available. Larger plates include goat cheese and black pepper tortellini with berries, almonds and mint, fried pig tails with scallions, honey, bean seeds, chiles and pickles, along with a pork sausage served with peaches, arugula, radish and blue raspberries.
However, Glass says, once a menu item is gone, it's gone — the menu will be dictated by what they have in house, not necessarily by what they can order.
“The restaurant has a weekly life cycle, and everyone that works here and comes to eat here needs to be okay with that," explains Glass of the rotating and ever-changing menu. "The only thing that won’t change is the level of service we’ll provide.”
The bar program, helmed by Donovan, will feature a handful of draft and bottled beers, along with a small frozen cocktail machine. The first frozen concoction will be a blackberry-sherry cobbler cocktail made using berries from Agriberry Farm mixed with lemon, sherry and tonic water. Joining Donovan is bartender Eli Adams, formerly of Citizen Burger Bar.
In the open kitchen, Glass will be joined by Sous Chef Scotty Floyd, previously of Sub Rosa Bakery, Nate’s Bagels and Lunch/Supper. The front-of-house team includes Laurin Trotman, most recently of Quirk Hotel, and Holli Hodges from La Fromagerie in Alexandria.
Despite its hurdles en route to opening, the restaurant has held fast to the French bouchon theme the team originally hoped to achieve — a convivial, intimate neighborhood outpost where the owners are present and the menu ebbs and flows with seasonal ingredients.
The name Grisette, stemming from a term used to describe French working-class women in the late 17th century, is also in sync with the vision of serving as a neighborhood place. It eventually became the name of the go-to beer style for factory workers that was “brewed for the people,” according to Glass.
As for the vibe inside, Glass says he wants Grisette to “look like his living room.” The walls are adorned with a floral forest green wallpaper, while dark gray, wood and gold accents create a timeless and elegant yet unfussy feel.
Many of the decorations are thrift finds or gifts from the Glasses’ families, including a newspaper clipping of Donnie’s great aunt, Janet Glass, proudly holding a catfish she caught at Jolly Pond, along with a buck's head and a slew of decoy ducks.
After being open for a few weeks, Grisette will roll out a “family meal” evening on Mondays — a day many area restaurants are typically closed — intended for people in the service industry. Grisette plans to offer a multicourse meal for $20 along with happy hour specials all night. The key is accessibility for all.
“Being affordable was really important to us as restaurant people,” Megan says, “We want people to come here every single night if they want to.”
Grisette will open at 4:30 p.m. on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays; at noon on Saturdays and Sundays; and will be closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If Grisette does not open this weekend, they will host a pop-up at Canon & Draw Brewing. Stay tuned to Facebook or Instagram for details.
