Ventura County gourmands received another dining option...

Ventura County gourmands received another dining option with the recent opening of the Sano Cafe in Port Hueneme. The Mediterranean-style restaurant specializes in pastas, tapas and other gourmet fare from Italy and France.

“Our approach to fine dining is casual but elegant,” said John Wilson, owner and executive chef who runs the place with his wife, Virginia. “You can have cappuccino and pastry or you can have three or four courses.”

Among the highlights of the lunch and dinner menus, which change seasonally: brochette de mare (broiled salmon, swordfish, scallops and scampi on a bed of angel hair pasta, with lobster sauce, garlic, clams and mussels); and filetto con porcini , a charbroiled Angus tenderloin wrapped in bacon and served with a five-mushroom sauce.

Sano Cafe is open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch, Monday to Saturday from 5 to 9:30 p.m. for dinner. In May, Wilson plans to begin a “Second Sunday at Sano” series of monthly multi-course dinners, with wine served with each course. The restaurant is at 301 E. Hueneme Road, in the Beachport shopping center.

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Eric Wachter, the businessman who won the rights last year to lease restaurant space on the renovated Ventura Pier, said he expects construction of the new eatery to begin May 1. And if all goes well, he said, the place should open around Thanksgiving.

Wachter plans to officially complete the sale of his longtime Ventura establishment Eric Ericsson’s Fish Company as soon as the pier restaurant is operating. The new owner will be John Strobel, owner of the Beachside Pizzeria, located across the street from Ericsson’s on South Seaward Avenue.

Pineapples, the deli-bistro of which Wachter has one-third ownership, is set to open next month. The restaurant is next to the Ventura Holiday Inn at the former site of Charlie’s. Wachter’s partners in the venture are Tom Woods, owner of Nona’s Courtyard Cafe in Ventura, and Chuck Smith, owner of the KB Roberts gift shop.

“We’ll have fun, light fare,” Wachter said about Pineapples. “We’ll serve sandwiches, salads, pastas, personalized pizzas and some entrees.”