Giovanni’s to Get New Owners and New Name

It has been 13 years since Giovanni Tromba opened Giovanni’s Restaurant in Camarillo. That’s a long time in the restaurant world--long enough as far as Tromba is concerned.

The restaurateur has sold his establishment to Denis and Cristina Rion who, as of July 1, will rename the establishment Nou Nou’s and replace the all-Italian menu with a Mediterranean list that will include Italian, Spanish and French (Provencal) cuisine.

Tromba is bidding adieu to his customers gradually, first by hosting three evenings of wine-makers dinners Sunday through Tuesday, and then by helping the Rions with the transition.

“We took Giovanni’s and raised it to a certain point, but I don’t have the creativity level I had five or six years ago,” said Tromba, 46. “If you have a restaurant for awhile, you can get rusty. I think what Giovanni’s needs at this time is a new life, a new element, new energy.”

Enter Denis Rion, 28, a graduate of the Culinary School of Thonon les Bans in his native France and former executive chef at Tuscany Il Ristorante in Westlake.

Rion said a key to his restaurant’s success will be knowing the taste preferences of his clientele. He has learned those tastes, he said, from seven years of Ventura County restaurant experience, and from his father-in-law, Aldo Arecco, original owner of Le Rendez-Vous Restaurant in Newbury Park.

“We will have light food, with a lot of grilling and roasting and not as much sauteing,” Rion said. “We will be bringing something new to the [diners], but these are products I have tried in the past. They are a summary of things that I have cooked before and people have asked for.”

Nou Nou’s will be open Tuesday to Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday for lunch, and Sunday for a special lunch and dinner.

The regular dinner menu will feature a selection of appetizers including baked brie in filo dough over a mushroom ragout ($7), steamed mussels with garlic, shallots, parsley and white wine ($7), and baked escargot with an herb garlic butter sauce ($7.50).

Pasta selections will include penne with olives, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, basil and spicy tomato sauce ($7); cappellini with fresh garden vegetables ($6.50); and linguine with stewed clams, garlic, basil and white wine or tomato sauce ($8).

Dinner entrees will include roasted duck breast topped with green olive sauce ($18.75); roasted rack of lamb served over a medley of vegetables, with a garlic, herb and whole grain mustard demi-glace ($19.25); filet of swordfish topped with ratatouille and served with rice pilaf ($18.95); a Spanish paella of chicken, mussels, clams, calamari, scampi and langostino over saffron rice ($20.75); and skewered jumbo prawns over spinach noodles topped with a roasted garlic cream sauce ($22.25).

Five different salads, two soups and four desserts round out the dinner menu.

While the Rions work on Nou Nou’s, Tromba will concentrate on his Ventura Pastabilities Restaurant, and in September plans to open an Ojai Pastabilities at the old Bank of America building across from the downtown Arcade.

“Ventura Pastabilities will be the new Giovanni’s,” Tromba said. “The menus will be upgraded, there will be more risottos, veals, the foods of Italy today.”

As for the final Giovanni’s wine dinners, Tromba said they will feature the more popular dishes he has prepared over the years. They will open with mixed green salad with citrus and toasted almond, followed by lobster ravioli in cream sauce with radicchio and spinach. Next will be a scampi in tomato-ginger-caper sauce, followed by the entree, a veal loin in Cabernet sauce with porcini mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes. Dessert and coffee will wrap up the evening.

Dinner all three nights will begin at 6:30; cost is $45 per person. Call 484-4376 for reservations for Sunday’s dinner (Monday and Tuesday nights are already sold out). Giovanni’s (Nou Nou’s) is at 5227 Mission Oaks Blvd.

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The event is not open to the public, but it’s worth drooling over anyway. Chefs from the Ventura County chapter of the American Culinary Federation will share the kitchen Monday for a multi-course meal at the Doubletree Hotel in Ventura.

The dinner is part of the federation’s joint meeting with local members of the Hospitality Sales Marketing Assn. International and the National Assn. of Catering Executives.

And now, the menu you’ll be missing: coconut shrimp a la orange, baked goat cheese and baby spinach salad, filet mignon with artichoke pesto relish and macadamia nut caramel and chocolate tart.