Real local flavor
By REAGAN WHEELER Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN A local talent running a local business can seem a rare thing in today’s world, but Raphael Lunetta decided to change that.
Lunetta is a 1985 Samohi graduate and head chef and owner of JiRaffe restaurant in downtown Santa Monica, a place near and dear to his heart.
He grew up on the beach in Santa Monica and the coast of the south of France, food was always near by. Lunetta’s mother found a way to send him to the French countryside six times by the time he was 11. He would take a plane by himself to Paris where one of his mother’s friends picked him up and sent him on his way by train to Provence, France.
From the age of 3, Lunetta spent almost every summer at his aunt’s French home in the country, which was made of stone, built in the 1800s and located just two miles from the coast. Lunetta found his way to the water with his cousin Isabel every chance he got.
“When you’re out in the sun and water, you get hungry,” said Lunetta.
This hunger was always well responded to, with cooking going on constantly in his aunt’s home. With “good food around the house,”Lunetta began to really enjoy the craft of making delicious food, even though at a young age he was not interested in cooking.
“Sometimes we would paddle out and have lunch on the Mediterranean Sea,” said Lunetta.“Once a week we would have a four-to six-hour lunch with good, solid food. There was always a lot of people in the house, but the food would be really simple — apricot jam, grilled sardines and mackerel, crushed garlic and dark bread. All of it was cooked outside over grape vines on an open fire.”
Lunetta’s father used to cook every Sunday and his Sicilian grandfather owned an Italian deli in East Boston. The aromas of garlic and manicotti cooking in the oven was not a rare occasion in the Lunetta household. His “short, Italian grandmother” would often prepare food from the the old country.
“I remember being at my grandpa’s wake when I was just in seventh grade,” said Lunetta. “It was a four-day food fest. I didn’t really know what a wake was then, but there was just food everywhere.”
Eating wholesome, tasty food has always been important to Raphael partly because he was not strongly influenced by junk food as a child, but also due to his active lifestyle.
“After you’ve been out surfing, you don’t want junk,” said Lunetta.
Surfing, always a staple in Lunetta’s life, has recently come to the forefront. Growing up in Santa Monica, he could be found at the beach with his surfboard under foot at least once a day during the school week. He also traveled to Hawaii around the age of 13 to surf the Northshore in Maui with his mother and childhood friend Josiah Citrin. While his mother was on the main island, the boys stayed with a friend of a friend. Carelessly spending all their money going out to eat at restaurants, the teenagers reverted to eating fresh fruit from the local trees.
“We had mangos and papayas sitting on the front porch ripening,” said Citrin. “After the man we were staying with saw what we were doing, he took us out for a steak dinner.”
After coming back to California, Lunetta went to school just four days a week. He managed to stay on good terms with his teachers, because they had mutual respect for one another. He said that they knew he wasn’t doing anything bad on the days he skipped out of school, only pursuing his passion of surfing. One of his teachers, Bob Perry, even had Lunetta help him do maintenance on his boat.
“A good or bad teacher can make such a big influence,” said Lunetta, who’s own father was a teacher.
After being forced to attend summer Jumschool just to graduate, Lunetta decided to stay close to the water. He took a few art and English classes at Santa Monica College, but never attended a culinary institution. He wanted to become a professional surfer, but did not have much money.
“I asked my dad for help, but he told me it was up to me to make it work,” said Lunetta.“ I surfed pro for two years, but you couldn’t really make much money unless you were in the top 32.”
After going to Hawaii a second time, Lunetta decided to surf a couple of lucrative contests in France. He was 19 then and traveled overseas with Citrin.
“It was only supposed to be me, so I was basically hiding Josiah in the closet,” said the chef.“We didn’t have any money for almost two weeks,until I got a job at a Mexican restaurant.”
After staying in France, they headed down to Portugal where they rented a house for a week.
Both men visited a local fish market to get dinner — five pounds of sardines. After frying the fresh, oily fish, the stench was very strong.
“It made the house smell for a whole week,” said Citrin.
The two friends worked at restaurants throughout France and Portugal, all the while “racking up Josiah’s credit card.” By 1990, Lunetta and Citrin decided that they had had enough of France and that it was time to return to California.
“We came back together listening to Led Zeppelin,” said Lunetta. “We were around 21 and immediately got jobs in restaurants in the L.A. area.”
Lunetta worked at Patina’s under renowned chef Joachim Splichal, as did Citrin. He learned a great deal about the pressure of a kitchen while working with Splichal.
“It was difficult in a positive way. I saw how much pressure Joachim put on himself to make that restaurant a great restaurant. That showed us a lot, and it also showed us how to run a business,” said Lunetta.
Lunetta had always dreamed of opening up a restaurant with Citrin. They became co-chefs at Capri in Venice, then moved on to Jackson’s. Their stint at Jackson’s lasted two years prior to 1996, when they finally opened JiRaffe together. After just three years, Citrin decided to open his own restaurant just a few blocks away, Melisse, leaving Lunetta as sole owner of JiRaffe.
At JiRaffe, Lunetta focused on using local ingredients and creating traditional French food that is “soft and velvety, comforting.” Sauces are almost a main course on their own. Lunetta and his staff spend 15 to 20 hours preparing each sauce from start to finish for lamb and chicken entrees.
“I try to prepare the food how I would want it as a customer,” said the chef, clad in a polo shirt and jeans during his day off. “For the most part, you won’t find the same vegetables in two dishes. It makes for more work and more stress, but it’s worth it.”
Lunetta’s French, fresh cuisine restaurant had been thriving for eight years, when he decided to partner up with Citrin once more. The old buddies opened up Lemon Moon, a more casual breakfast and lunch joint, in 2004.
Lunetta continues to co-own Lemon Moon, which is derived from the owners’ last names — Citrin, which is French for lemon, and Lunetta, Italian for Moon.
“Raphael is a role model in the community,” said Marje Bennetts, Lunetta’s publicist.
Many people in Santa Monica know him by name. When just sitting in the restaurant on his day off, eating a salad, local patrons walk by the glass window of JiRaffe waving and smiling at Lunetta.
“Being from the area, I have an obligation to be solid,” said Lunetta, who was recently inducted into the Samohi Hall of Fame.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 23, 2007. Read the original PDF.