WORK • Thursday Routine
NOAH HOLTON-RAPHAEL • co-founder • Ggiata
Neighborhood you work: Melrose Hill
Neighborhood you live in: Mar Vista
It’s Thursday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Thursday is culinary innovation day at Ggiata, our delivery and pickup delicatessen. We’re testing an “Italian” Reuben, a piparra pepper cheesesteak, a “Jersey” cobb salad with crispy prosciutto, and whatever else we dreamt up the night before. It’s a good day to be in Melrose Hill.
I stop at Cafe Telegrama for coffee, hoping to run into Andrew or Evan so I can bullshit with them for a few minutes. I arrive at our spot around 10a, shopping bags in hand. The team knows Thursday means the kitchen is going to be HOT, so everyone is locked in, trying to get their prep done before lunch. Normally, this is the time the cooks tell me how I can’t actually cook for shit and how I should stay out of their way.
What’s on the agenda for today?
Today, we’ve turned the Ggiata office into a film set. We’re shooting our Season 3 specials. The Ggiata Reuben, the pastrami egg & cheese, and the strawberry cheesecake all get the Hollywood treatment.
After we wrap, we race up the street to Etra. We’re hosting a collaborative dinner at the end of the month, so we’re shooting the photos we’ll use to announce the event at their spot. Evan, the chef/co-owner, is one of the best in LA right now. Watching him interpret the Jersey classics we grew up on — like chicken Savoy and pork Francaise — is so cool. I once worked with an equally talented chef when I was 14. It was my first week as a busboy at Leone’s, a red sauce joint off Bloomfield Ave. in Montclair, NJ. Gordon Ramsay came in for a week to shoot Kitchen Nightmares. It didn’t go great.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
Since I moved to LA in 2018, I’ve always lived in Mar Vista. First, in a big house on Appleton Way with my five best friends from Jersey. Now I’m in a small house on Venice and Beethoven with my girlfriend from Michigan. Sandwiched between Venice and Culver City, Mar Vista is an underappreciated part of the city. The same is true of its restaurants.
Once a week I walk to Saby’s, the Oaxacan cafe serving the best breakfast burrito in West LA. If I’m lucky, they’ve just made a batch of salsa macha and I’ll grab as much as they’ll let me. I’ll walk east on Venice past all the bottlebrush trees to Taverna, a neighborhood Greek restaurant that does a legendary Greek BBQ on Sundays. I’ll cross Washington for Old Man Bar, my favorite place to drink in the city. They were on the Americana wave before everyone in Venice started dressing like cowboys. My girlfriend and I have eaten more meals at Uzumaki than anywhere in the city. It’s the perfect neighborhood sushi spot. Ask for Jenny.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I spend most of my week around Melrose Hill, the best neighborhood in the city right now. Our first shop is there, and we just built out a small office next door. I love popping into the galleries along Western. I go see Justice and Tricia at Pop Up Home. Gigi at Interior Greens has incredible pieces. LA Grocery & Café for flowers, wine, meats, pretty much everything.
In 15 minutes you can get to Fountain. Go visit Danny D’s Mud Shop or the plant store next door, and eat at Saffy’s or Found Oyster. In ten minutes, you can get to the Hollywood Bowl (I’m seeing Leon Bridges there). In five minutes, you can be at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. We’ll go see something on the Cinespia calendar soon. I love it there.
Any weekend getaways?
In March, my girlfriend and I went to Ojai. We got engaged there. Spring is citrus season, so every mile of Ventura County is marked by rows of Valencia oranges and Meyer lemons. We stop at any of the roadside stands selling fruit. The air is sticky and smells sweet. The same is true of the fruit.
We pass the ranch that once belonged to Johnny Cash. I think about my grandpa who used to drive me around Wilmington, Delaware in his Volvo playing “A Boy Named Sue.” He got such a kick out of that song, and at the time, so did I. I wonder what Johnny Cash would think of Ojai Valley Inn. I bet he’d like Rory’s Place.
What was your last great vacation?
Every winter I go to Vieques, a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico. My dad has a house there, and he’s been going for years. The island has more horses than people, and no hotels or hospitals. He just got running water from the town last summer, but when laying the pipes, didn’t account for the goats that stampede over the yard. It takes three flights to get there from LA, including a six seater over the most turbulent air in the Caribbean. My dad was never a pragmatist.
When we land, our first stop is always Duffy's, a proper Caribbean beach bar. Rum floaters on pina coladas cost $2, and they’re always out of most of the menu. Sometimes, we get there on Thursday at 5p and they’re open. Sometimes we get there on Thursday at 5p, and they’re not. Either way, we’re unaffected, and happy to be warm in December.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
In January I got a pug named Giovanni. I never really had pets growing up, except for a box turtle named Shelly that we had to smuggle into our neighborhood from Pennsylvania. In Jersey, you can build generational wealth from working in sanitation, but you can’t have a box turtle. That never made sense to me. We spoil Gio. The guy has more outfits than most grown men. Last week my girlfriend bought him an Italy soccer jersey, a cable knit sweater, and a beater. He looks like Christopher Moltisanti as a dog.
As an engagement gift to myself, I bought an old Rolex Cellini from the ’70s. Why should the person proposing walk away empty handed? I like watches, but it’s not a passion. I don’t know about movements or the inspiration behind the models, so I look for pieces that have some character, “geezer watches” that get better as we get older.