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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Family Affair: Chef Greg Russi specializes in authentic Italian family cuisine at Willow Glen's new Vin Santo, which he and his wife, Susan, recently opened.
Vin Santo offers home-style cooking from Tuscany region
By Jim Aquino
Susan Russi, half of the Willow Glen husband-and-wife team that owns Lincoln Avenue's newest Italian restaurant, Vin Santo, has learned a lot about running a restaurant since its successful opening in early July.
"I'm learning about things that are specific to running a kitchen," she says.
Susan worked in the human resources department at Apple Computer in Cupertino for 11 years before leaving this fall to devote her full attention to Vin Santo, where her husband, co-owner Greg Russi, is the executive chef. She is also learning that running a restaurant is not unlike inviting guests into their home.
"Greg and I have always entertained and had dinner parties," she says, but at Vin Santo, "it's on a grander scale."
"Grand" may be just the word to describe the line that usually forms outside Vin Santo late in the afternoon for dinner. According to manager Bret-Jordon Kreiensieck, the restaurant is often so full that customers call a week and a half in advance to reserve a table.
Vin Santo's specialty, cuisine from Greg's family's home region of Tuscany, Italy, is what's pulling customers in.
"They're coming in and saying, 'This is the kind of place we were waiting for,'" Susan says.
For those unfamiliar with Tuscan food, Greg describes it as anything-goes, and that's the approach he brings to his own dishes, which include gemelli con pesto (pesto served with potatoes, peppers and beans) and grilled salmon on sautéed squash and tomatoes. Greg's dishes combine Tuscan sensibilities with local ideas he picked up from fellow chefs during previous stints with Bay Area restaurants such as Paolo's and Café Primavera.
"The style of my food is very simple, and it revolves around what most people would call California cuisine, which is similar to Northern Italian-style food," Greg says. "It was always common in our family to have a meal one night, and then the next night use items from the night before to create an entirely different meal. You'd have roast, and then the next night, you'd make porbetta, which is mini-meatloaf hamburgers mixed with bread and eggs."
Greg says he likes to create dishes more commonly found in a seaside home in Tuscany rather than at a traditional Italian restaurant.
"You don't really find a whole-bean preparation served with sautéed prawns at a restaurant," he says. "It's something you'd read in a recipe you'd make at home. My goal is infusing that kind of tradition into my restaurant to eventually have people come in and be familiar with why San Danielle prosciutto is the best prosciutto you can buy."
Greg also changes Vin Santo's menu every two or three weeks for variety.
"I get bored with my food and my presentations quite easily," he says, adding that the menu changes keep his kitchen staff invigorated.
The Russis' future plans for Vin Santo include a series of special four- to six-course wine dinners that will showcase wines from Healdsburg's Christopher Creek Winery, where Greg's brother Chris serves as winemaker.
Susan is also looking forward to seeing more restaurants pop up in the neighborhood. She says newer businesses like hers are helping to rejuvenate not only their part of Lincoln Avenue (the space now occupied by Vin Santo previously belonged to the China Palace restaurant), but the rest of the avenue as well.
"Ten to 15 years ago, the avenue was kind of sleepy, and a lot of people took a chance and opened businesses," Susan says. "Everybody's business goes up if we bring more foot traffic to the avenue. The more, the merrier."
Vin Santo, 1346 Lincoln Ave., Tuesday-Friday 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (lunch), 5:30-10 p.m. (dinner), Saturday 5:30-10 p.m. (dinner only). Closed Sunday and Monday and lunch on Saturday. For more information, call 408.920.2508.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
