All things will soon be in place for Christine Wansleben when she opens her recreational cooking school, Mise En Place, in May.

Mise En Place (a French culinary term for "all things in place" to prepare a meal) will be located in a new building under construction at 1206 Shockoe Lane behind Shockoe Espresso. But the nonaccredited school, offering demonstration and hands-on classes, will not, like other cooking schools in Richmond, function as a restaurant, catering business or store.

"It will be a place were you could have a cooking-class birthday party for children or have an adult dinner party where the guests cook for themselves," Wansleben says.

Wansleben moved to Richmond two years ago with her fiance after working in New York City at restaurants (11 Madison Park and Chanterelle) and as a personal chef. She spent the last two years cooking for A Sharper Palate Catering Co.

"I have closed enough restaurants at 3 a.m. to know I don’t want to do that anymore," she says. "Catering is also an exhausting job, although it was rewarding and great for getting to know Richmond. Teaching is what I enjoy the most so that’s what I’d like to specialize in."

The 1,600-square-foot space will include kitchen and dining areas, and a resource center - a cooking library with access to Wansleben’s array of cookbooks. The school will be on the ground floor of the apartment building with additional retail space.

Local designer Chris McCray was hired to plan the interior. He says it will have a heavy, cartoon-Gothic look, a cross between "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Sleepy Hollow." It will include oversized Renaissance oil portraits and an old farmhouse table with Philippe Starck chairs. Particpants will gather and eat the fruits of their labor after each class.

"You’re going to be coming in off of a cobblestone street with oil lamps," McCray says, "and when you come inside, it will seem like an old castle banquet hall."

"In restaurant design," he says, "you can’t just have good food, you also need to make the space entertaining." - Charlie Ban