Almaden Resident

Dining

Photograph by Diana Diroy

Handmade: Balsamic Caesar with sun-dried tomatoes (left) and pan-seared sea scallops are among the specialties that Justin Perez has put on the menu at Restaurant O.

Justin Perez celebrates opening of Restaurant

By Anne Gelhaus

After turning his Restaurant O from an Italian-style bistro to a "New York-swank" dining space, owner/chef Justin Perez can rightly claim he knows his business from top to bottom.

"I worked on everything in this place," says Perez, an Almaden Valley resident. "I put the slate on the walls myself. We built everything but the chairs. We built the tables ourselves."

Restaurant O reopened Oct. 18. The hands-on remodel took two years to complete, but Perez says it was worth the time and effort.

"I have a restaurant I can finally be proud of," he adds. "It's something we'd been dreaming about for a long time."

Perez shut down his Campbell restaurant to concentrate on his catering business and on finding a larger space. When plans to move Restaurant O to Santana Row fell through, he decided to expand his existing business in a Winchester Boulevard strip mall. What was a private dining room is now a general seating area, and the catering offices have been moved next door to another unit in the mall.

"We have 78 seats now," Perez says. "We can do 200 meals a night comfortably."

Besides nearly doubling the restaurant's seating capacity, Perez swapped out white tablecloths and place settings for black. Slate and brown-velvet wall coverings are complemented by lighter wood paneling accented with warm orange paint.

"We went for darker colors so that when the plate's in front of you, the food's the palette," Perez says.

As a chef, Perez's culinary offerings change with the seasons. As before, the only constants on Restaurant O's menu are the osso buco and the oven-roasted mussels. About half the menu items for this autumn are new; the rest Perez created for falls past.

"I created a lot of new things for the catering business over the last two years that I can incorporate into the restaurant," says the chef, adding that his elk chop with a blueberry chocolate reduction is proving popular, as is the Kurobuta pork chop wrapped in pancetta and topped with a pear reduction.

Perez plans to reintroduce the restaurant's wine-pairing menu next month. While the old wine list featured vintages solely from Santa Cruz Mountain wineries, the restaurant is now pouring wines from Napa and Italy as well.

"A lot of people who come in for the osso buco want an Italian wine to go with it," Perez says.

Restaurant O's nontraditional menu offerings reflect Perez's personal tastes, especially now that business partners Susan and Rick Ardizzone have become more the silent type.

"Everyone asks me what kind of food it is," he says. "It's what I feel like making. My food style has changed so much that it's almost no style."

In the midst of re-creating Restaurant O, Perez and his family had to cope with threats and violence after they tried to aid a woman who ran screaming up to their house one day. When Perez stepped in to protect the woman from being assaulted, he became a target. As a result of this incident, three people were convicted in July for crimes against his family and their gardeners.

"It hindered my life for about a year," Perez says. "Everything got put on hold for awhile. Luckily, they're all in jail now."

As to the restaurant itself, Perez says, diners have given him positive feedback on the remodel and the menu.

"A lot of returning customers are very happy it's back," he adds.

Restaurant O, 2081 S. Winchester Blvd., Campbell, 408.871.3135. Open for dinner Wednesday-Saturday.