Neal Fraser is best known for his beloved fine-dining restaurant Grace, which will eventually reopen at Vibiana Downtown. In the meantime, the classically trained chef has turned his attention to food typically considered more lowbrow. As the executive chef of Fritzi Dog at the Farmers Market, he’s bringing a gourmet aspect to the typical hot dog experience.

But he’s also keeping it simple: only five dogs and four Rockenwagner Bakery buns. The recipes represent variations on many Fraser has been fine-tuning for years. The signature beef and pork Fritzi Dog, for instance combines influences culled from a lamb sausage he perfected at Checkers while working for Thomas Keller, and the Chilean spice merken, which he discovered while hosting a South American chef at Grace. That said, Fraser assures, “they are unique without being too unique—we don’t want to scare our audience away, especially at the [tourist-friendly] Farmers Market.

Fraser also likes to quip there are no “lips or asses” used in the product, only “primal” meats. Two of the wieners are fully emulsified, more traditional hot dogs. Others are only partially emulsified, so that there can—and should—be variation in bites. If you slice into them, it’s clearly not a puree; instead there are visible fragments of the herbs, spices and meats. As Fraser points out, “With variation of texture you also get a variation of flavor. Each bite is a little different based on the fat-to-spice ratio.” Try all five as part of the mini four-inch “tasting dogs.”

Chef Bernhard Mairinger is passionate about what he calls Modern Austrian cuisine, but when it comes to his sausage recipes, he’s more of a traditionalist, particularly because he loves introducing Angelenos to specialty blends most have never seen before. Two unique staples on his sausage menu are the debreziner, a spicy and thin sausage; and the thicker käsekrainer—Mairinger’s personal favorite—which is infused with emmental cheese. Beer-pairing suggestions are on the menu.

The recipes came from a butcher shop that chef worked at in his native Austria. When he was ready to open his own restaurant, he then played around a bit with the ingredients, “a little more here, a little less there.” But the actual sausage production comes from Continental in Glendale.

Mairinger says, “I worked with [Continental owner] Eugene Goetz for about a week…we went over the recipes, how the cheese gets folded in, what casing we’re going to use. We tried the first batch, talked about flavor, what needed to change. After a few times, we pretty much had it.”

Aidas Mattis was a loyal Red Lion customer long before he ever considered buying the place. He’s actually Lithuanian, not German, but jokes that it’s “as close to German as an Eastern European can get.” In fact, the venue has long hosted many of his countrymen on Sundays, following church services at the nearby St. Casimir parish in Los Feliz.

In 2004, he took over ownership of the bar, after the previous proprietor passed away. In late 2011, Continental owner Eugene Goetz was approaching retirement and realized that his legacy would be best preserved if his business and his biggest client basically merged.

Training sessions with Goetz have assured that Mattis and his partners will indeed continue the legacy of the “stubborn old German,” who amassed an entire wall of trophies and ribbons through his success is sausage competitions over the years. It’s good news for the many eateries serviced by Continental, including Atwater’s Link-n-Hops, not to mention the many area families who regularly stop by the retail store for umpteen different varies of sausage, including Hungarian kolbasa, Swiss bockwurst, Polish kielbasa and Cajun andouille.

Don’t think of Steingarten as a European biergarten concept imported to LA. Think of it as its submoniker suggests: “California’s beer garden.” It’s not about lederhosen and an everyday Oktoberfest, it’s about exacting standards on the sausages, with vendors under exclusive contract to execute the many proprietary recipes. And there are no less than two-dozen varieties, from a very approachable basic bratwurst and chicken apple to a whole section of game like venison and wild boar. There are also vegan options that come from Oregon, and the kosher sausages are sourced from a certified kosher butcher.

And co-owner Abbey Berookhim is always pushing culinary boundaries. At the moment, he’s tinkering with a new sausage for the holidays. He says, “I’m designing a new one for Christmas. A turkey sausage with caramelized onions and raisins ... That’s my project at the moment.”

His day-to-day work, however, finds him walking the floor of his restaurant, chatting up regulars. Fittingly, the casual vibe befits the neighborhood, with many families dining early in the evening, making room for beer and whiskey lovers later on—the brew menu boasts 120 selections and the brown spirits list is impressively deep as well.

Jody Maroni’s sausage stand has been a Venice landmark since 1979, when the namesake owner set up a barbecue grill on the boardwalk and began peddling his product to eager passersby. Originally, there were only a couple Italian sausages offered, but over the years, many different varieties were added based on “Maroni’s” studies and travels. There are presently five core sausages—the original two hot and sweet Italian, chicken apple, bratwurst and andouille—plus a few exotics that rotate in and out, such as chicken mole with chocolate, cumin and chile.

The man behind the legend is Jordan Monkarsh, whose roots are actually Jewish, not Italian. It is said that he was “born into the world of meat,” since his father owned a highly regarded butcher shop in the San Fernando Valley. Operating under the belief that no one would buy Italian sausage from a Jewish guy, Monkarsh created the pseudonym that spawned a kingdom. Though Jody himself hasn’t been involved in the day-to-day operations since 2011, he still consults and is still the face of the restaurant; his children are the majority shareholders. There are additional Los Angeles-area locations at Universal CityWalk Hollywood and Terminal Six at LAX.