Dining's First Couple
Ellen and Todd Gray aren't defined by D.C.'s new restaurant scene - they helped create it.
BY JOHN GREENYA

If we could, we'd live above the restaurant," says Ellen Gray. "We're that obsessed." Obsession is no stranger to Ellen and Todd Gray, the husband-and-wife team behind Washington's Equinox restaurant. In a short time, they've become the first couple of D.C.'s culinary scene.

In their younger days, the Grays were dedicated Deadheads who hit the road as often as they could to follow Jerry Garcia and the boys. Coowners and operators of Equinox since 1999, they have turned their mutual love of good food into their passion and their livelihood. They're so immersed in their work that the Washington City Paper dubbed them "Mom and Pop in Power Central."

A native of Fredericksburg, Va., Todd Gray, 39, was majoring in French at the University of Richmond when several friends asked him to work in a restaurant with them. He found the food world so enticing that he transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. With the exception of numerous trips to follow the Grateful Dead, he has been in the business ever since.

His resume reads like a chef's dream come true: two years at La Petite Auberge; four years as an apprentice to Robert Greault at La Colline; seven years under the tutelage of Roberto Donna at Galileo; and "on loan" occasionally to JeanLouis Palladin's legendary restaurant a the Watergate.

Washington native Ellen Gray, born Ellen Kassoff, was decidedly peripatetic. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in economics, she hit the road. "I visited 15 countries in six years and crossed the United States 11 times," she says. After several years freelancing articles about food and wine, Ellen spent two years in New York in financial publishing before she returned to D.C. to work for Sysco, the giant food supplier, and the chichi food company D'Artagnan. While working for Sysco, she made a sales call on Galileo and met "a cute young sous cbef" named Todd.

The area nearly lost the travel-loving Grays to Northern California. "In 1994, we'd been dating for a couple of years. One day while we were sitting in Pesce," recalls Ellen, "Todd said he wanted to move to Fredericksburg. I said, 'The only way I'd go down there is if we got married,' and he replied, 'OK' - and that's how we got engaged. For the next several years, we plotted to start a restaurant in Napa Valley, but then Roberto promoted Todd to executive chef and that was the end of that."

Todd and Ellen credit D.C.'s fine dining renaissance, especially French and Italian, to the friendship and camaraderie of such award-winning chefs as Palladin, Donna and Jeff Buben. They give Donna high marks for being helpful when Todd told him he wanted to start his own place. "Instead of saying 'I don't want you to go,' he said 'I want to help you.' He told me it would take a couple of years to get a business plan together, find financing and a good location and he was right."

Given that the failure rate of new restaurants is at least 80 percent, the Grays must be doing something right. The key to their success, they say, is that they work as equal partners and have a terrific staff. "The fact that this restaurant is doing well is not about Todd and Ellen; it's about our people," says Ellen. Todd adds, "Being married and having a common goal helped us get out of the gate. But what really helps is that we both take a proactive role in the business."

The couple's energy will be tested later this year when Todd begins to oversee the two restaurants at the Salamander Inn, the new Middleburg, Va., hotel of philanthropist and businesswoman Sheila Johnson. Ellen is careful to point out that the new venture doesn't represent a shift in their focus. "Salamander is a great opportunity, a sweet gig with a really neat lady, but it's not defining us. We believe it will expand on what we've already established and expand our business here. But Equinox is our bread and butter - our rock."

PORTFOLIO
Ellen and Todd Gray

FAVORITE DINING SPOTS IN D.C.: (Todd) "Spices in Cleveland Park. We also like to eat in our friends' restaurants - places such as Marcel's, Citronelle, DC Coast and Melrose." (Ellen) "If we have a night out, we'll go to two or three places. We sit at the bar, have a glass of wine and an appetizer and then go to another place. It's the foodie version of a pub crawl."

FAVORITE VACATION SPOTS: (Todd) "in the States, it's New York City, Northern California and anywhere we can hike and backpack." (Ellen) "Italy, New Zealand and France - all places we've been to exactly once."

FAVORITE MEALS EVER: (Todd) The French Laundry in 1995. (Ellen) Jean Georges in New York.