Bonjour, Ventura

The charming coastal town with a European sensibility.

WORDS Ninette Paloma

There is a small café in Paris - just off the Rue Godefroy Cavaignac in the Bastille neighborhood - that I return to time and again when I’m in town. Little more than an inviting space with worn wooden tables and mismatched dinnerware, its aesthetic lies perfectly in the center of where my Parisian dreams live. The streamlined menu, fresh and always rotating, is upstaged only by the obscure wine selections that line the back wall and nest in crates tucked beneath the bar. Juicy and vibrant and funky and raw, these wines tell stories of rainy spells in the Loire Valley and cold snaps in the Savoie. 
Which is what I tell Damien Lacour the owner on a Gamay-fueled night just before he casually reveals details about his latest venture: a wine import business with a friend who is opening up a bottle shop in Ventura. I put my glass down and lean in, convinced I heard the last part wrong. Yes, he insists, a beach town north of Los Angeles called Ventura have you heard of it? 

Back in Santa Barbara, I make the 30-minute pilgrimage down south to see for myself. Past Carpinteria and the surfers at Rincon, down east Main Street where a charming row of sun-bleached bungalows lead me to a tucked away shop with a painted sign and handsome plants. The owner Summer Staeb motions me in with a smile, and I linger for the better part of an hour perusing rows of small production wine until my stomach starts to grumble. Nearby, a french café offers up generous tartines on marble tables, and I sink into a pain au levain slathered with avocado and radishes not unlike the one I had just a few weeks ago along the banks of the river Seine. 
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I may have been on a hunt for seriously great french wine, but what I discovered kept me coming back to this coastal city over the next few months, unearthing small brocante shops and sipping amaro cocktails in an old Bank of Italy building. Ventura, it seems, has been quietly harboring a European sensibility, with artists and entrepreneurs serving up impeccably detailed concepts in decidedly laissez-faire environs. Can’t get away to the old continent this season? Here are four Ventura hot spots that will make you feel like you’re on European holiday – without the tedious customs line.

01 I Midtown Wines

“You need so little to fill your life with good and enjoyable things.”
Jake Zylstra is handing me a glass of Jeremy Quastana’s pepper-spiked Gamay while regaling stories about his days living in Basque Country. “Every day you wake up and start your daily rituals,” he explains. “Walk to the bakery to pick up your fresh bread; walk to the market to pick up your veggies; and then you stop by your local wine shop to pick up a bottle for dinner.”
As the wine consultant for Summer Staeb’s newly opened bottle shop, Zylstra has invested in building a community of casual wine drinkers while supporting the efforts of Europe’s boutique, minimal-intervention winemakers, many of whom he met while living and working in France. What started out as a renegade passion project has quickly turned into a full-time venture, including an import business called Cul Sec with Damien Lacour that focuses on small production wines and methods from Europe.
“I was selling bottles to surfers out of the trunk of my car,” he remembers. “It was pretty amazing to see how many people here were interested in quality wine just as much as they cared about having quality food.”
Roughly half of Midtown Wine’s inventory is sourced from France, with other European and Central Coast labels rounding out their always changing selection. Organic and biodynamic farming practices are the main focus, as well as low-intervention techniques during the winemaking process itself. A membership program and lively events ensures their charmingly decorated shop is filled with neighbors and visitors alike.
“Ventura captured our hearts in such an unexpected way,” says Staeb. “The support and enthusiasm of our little community is a testament to humanity.”

​02 I Cafe Ficelle

Leave it to the french to invent a modest version of the already minimalist baguette. Thin and petite – and perfect for transporting to a picnic lunch – the appealing ficelle is also the namesake of a family-owned café decades in the making. As a former student of the esteemed culinary school Institut Paul Bocuse in the french town of Lyon, Ventura native Bryan Scofield knew pastries would become his purpose.
​Several apprenticeships in France, Italy, and Germany later reinforced his direction, and when Scofield described his dream of opening up a European- style café in his hometown, his daughter Lyndy Woodruff and son-in-law Jarrett Chambers jumped on board.
“After my wife and I married in June 2014, baking turned into a side job that helped us pay rent,” said Chambers. “Now it has lead us all over the world and allowed me to lead a team of bakers.”
Six years later, Café Ficelle has become a place for Venturans to while away the afternoon dipping flaky viennoiseries into steaming mugs of macchiatos. The sprawling space is filled with cozy seating nooks and large communal tables in sun-filled rooms. In the main dining area, marble-topped bistro tables and cane-backed chairs set the stage for niçoise salads and veggie-packed quiche.
And the bread. Crunchy boules and seeded ryes and tangy sourdoughs spiked with briny black olives. Slice into a freshly baked loaf and it quickly becomes apparent that Café Ficelle takes its bread program seriously.
“A baker must have a great understanding of chemistry, fermentation, physics, a creative mind, and, most importantly, patience,” stresses Chambers. None of that, however, is required for the simple act of tearing into a crusty ficelle.

03 I Bank of Italy Cocktail Trust

Back in 1923, when San Francisco banker Amadeo Pietro Giannini was looking to expand his Bank of Italy empire, he settled on the centralized town of Ventura. For nearly a decade, the stately branch in a Beaux-Arts designed building catered to a mostly working-class clientele, including the many immigrant and agricultural families that still thrive in the area today. Giannini believed that financial dignity should be available to everyone, and the community responded by assigning their savings to his care – much to the malaise of more established California bankers.
A century later, the building’s glimmering façade has not lost its sheen, and thanks to Misty Orman and Brandon Ristaino of Good Lion Hospitality, neither has its Italian roots. Walk into Bank of Italy Cocktail Trust and the first thing you will notice is the apothecary bottles that line the span of the gilded bar: potions and reductions hidden in flagons of amber glass ready to punch up a fresh drink. The cocktail program highlights the aperitifs, digestifs, and herbaceous liqueurs that give the Italian aperitivo its distinctive flavors. Under Ristaino’s care, an old fashioned is spiked with smoked amaro and a wine spritz gets its fizz from ruby red lambrusco.
The traditional cicchetti meant to accompany a cocktail comes in the form of tinned fish, castelvetrano olives perfumed with lemon, or generous boards of cheese and salumi. As the evening wears on, heartier offerings like eggplant parmesan layered with provolone and a sublime sugo or substantial Italian heros stuffed with sweet peppers and slathered in a Calabrian chile spread will make you linger a little longer. And if you do, be sure to wind things down with a smooth and refreshing Regal Bobby, one of the most satisfying digestifs this side of Veneto.

​04 I The Majestic Ventura Theatre

Thomas Mars loves an old theatre. As the lead singer of Parisian pop band Phoenix, he has been known to perform in cities based on the charm of their dusty and ageing venues. It should come as no surprise, then, that a 1928 Spanish Revival movie theatre-turned-concert hall sandwiched between L.A. and San Francisco should be a beloved stop on the band’s international tours.
Stepping into The Majestic Ventura Theatre is like pulling back the veil of an opulent time in the city’s history, when art and architecture soared on the gilded wings of prosperity. Starburst chandeliers and gilded relief work shimmer above red velvet curtains and murals of dancing ladies in ruffled dresses. The theatre’s rich acoustics and intimate size instantly draw you in to a musicians’ world, where sound and light bounces feverishly against the energy of an adoring crowd.
When Phoenix burst onto The Majestic’s stage this winter, they were at the finish line of a grueling 31-city tour. One glance around the crowd – a spirited mix of downhome locals, L.A. scenesters, and all the diehard fans in between – and I could see the appeal of selecting Ventura as a final stop. This felt eerily like a Montmartre audience, with smartly dressed women sipping red wine alongside young men in tight pants and numerous piercings. Even Mars himself, dressed in a point d’esprit blouse and faded black jeans, seemed comforted by the scene. In steady succession, he belted out songs from their lengthy catalogue while skipping around the stage and perching himself onto one of the theatre’s peeling columns. Drawing his boots closer to the edge, he finally gave in to his impulses and dove into the crowd, tethered by the long red cord of his microphone as he wove his way around the audience for one final song. And just when it seemed impossible to distinguish The Majestic from any other music hall in Paris, a towering guy with bulging arms stepped in front of Mars and yelled “Great job, man!” before embracing him in a long bear hug. The music may have been born in France, but we were unmistakably in California.