Peasant Food: Notes From a Life in Restaurants
By Brad Johnson, Oxford American, April 2021
In 2013, in Venice Beach, my business partner chef Govind Armstrong and I opened Willie Jane, a Low Country Southern restaurant named after my onehundred- year-old aunt. The eldest and at the time only remaining sibling in my father’s family, Aunt Willie Jane and five of her siblings had been born in Dawson, Georgia. My dad, the youngest of the seven, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, after the family moved north in 1925. I felt a restaurant in my aunt’s name was a nice way to pay homage to my family’s Southern roots.
Learning the business first hand, eventually working all front of house positions, gave me a glimpse into a glamorous world of fashion, music, food, and drink…
The space, with its ample bar, cozy interior, and verdant patio, was the right backdrop for the dose of Southern comfort we aspired to deliver to Abbot Kinney Blvd., which GQ called the “Coolest Block in America” in 2012. Following up on my opening of Post & Beam in L.A.’s Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw neighborhood in 2012, Willie Jane provided a chance to pair an extensive Southern-inspired cocktail list with our Low Country menu. Head mixologist Derrick Bass created a cocktail program that he described as a “whiskey bar, with garden to glass influences.” Drinks were served in Mason jars and an all-day party on Kentucky Derby day featured our Derby Day Cooler, Coal Miner’s Daughter, and Mint Julep. Chef Armstrong described an “Edna Lewis–style” preparation of shrimp and grits, marrying his thoughtfully curated shrimp paste with stone-ground Anson Mills grits.
