Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Gary Bersano, executive chef at Villa Felice, is taking the menu toward his Italian roots.

Villa Felice owners go Italian with menu

By Suzanne Cristallo

If you haven't visited Villa Felice lately, you're in for a pleasant surprise. The people who have lived the Italian traditions and cooked Italian food for generations now are offering Italian/continental fare to guests at lunch and soon will be presenting a new menu for dinner.

While their menu traditionally has been continental, three generations of Bersanos have honored their roots and pleased guests by offering pastas and special sauces since 1950, long before it became the popular thing to do.

Gary Bersano, grandson of Felix, the restaurant's founder, is head chef and designer of the new menu.

Providing he is not overseeing a banquet for 1,100 people, he enjoys taking time to create a special sauce, withholding butter in the recipe when asked and creating a new dish when requested.

If you are not familiar with the possibilities, try these sauces as a starter: tomato duck over fettucini, sour cherry with a dash of vodka, basil amaretto or anisette liqueur.

Entrees range in price from $14.95 to $18.75, including soup or salad.

Overlooking Lake Vasona, Villa Felice has been a family operation since Felix Bersano and a hometown friend, a chef from the village of Caselli, near Turin, Italy, bought the business in 1950. The restaurant first opened its doors in 1925.

Gary's father Ed and his uncles Richard and Don grew up in the restaurant and today share the operation of the business.

All the offspring of the third generation worked in the restaurant during their school years and beyond. Gary is the only one of Felix's grandchildren left in the business, but he is acquainting his eight-year-old son with the manly art of chopping and peeling in the kitchen.

Sunday brunch is an opportunity for Gary, a graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, to strut his Italian style, proving Villa Felice is authentically Italian in a world gone pasta-mad.

Villa Felice, 15350 Winchester Blvd., Los Gatos. Lunch: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; Dinner: Mon.-Sat., 5-10 p.m.; Sunday brunch served 10 a.m.-2 p.m., and Sunday dinner 3-9 p.m. 395-6711.