Inn Delves Into the Past to Refashion Its Future

Many folks watched the ball drop at Times Square on New Year’s Eve, others watched a casino explode in Las Vegas and others found alternative ways to send out the old and ring in the new.

At Ventura’s Pierpont Inn, the new year--and a new direction--were ushered in on New Year’s Eve with the hanging of the Mattie’s restaurant sign. The restaurant, a renamed and reworked version of the existing establishment, is scheduled to open around the beginning of June.

In name, Mattie’s will pay tribute to the inn’s matriarch, Mattie Gleichmann, who died in February at age 100. Gleichmann and her husband, Gus, who died nearly 60 years ago, purchased the Pierpont in 1928 and it has remained in the family since.

Mattie’s cuisine will pay tribute to the dishes for which the Pierpont was recognized in earlier days.

“We are kind of looking selectively over the last 50 years at what dishes were popular and that we feel people will still enjoy,” said Rod Houck, general manager of the Pierpont and husband of Alisa Houck, a granddaughter of Mattie Gleichmann.

“We want to re-create the ‘30s and ‘40s,” Houck said. “I’ve always wanted to make the changes and capitalize on the history of the Inn. We will serve many of the dishes the restaurant was famous for and that our generation doesn’t know anything about.”

Come June, the regular menu will include steak and martini dinners (with a special martini menu), vichyssoise (popular in the 1950s), curry-papaya salad (from the ‘60s) and chateaubriand (beef fillet popular in the ‘70s).

Though the dishes are from the past, Pierpont chef Kevin Sherry said the retro menu will be as much a sign of the future as of the past. The trend now, he said, is toward cuisine that was popular 50, 60 and 70 years ago.

“Everybody went to nouvelle cuisine, then it was California cuisine, then it was anything-goes cuisine. Now we are getting back to our roots,” Sherry said.

“We kind of got lost trying to compete with Europe and other countries and we’ve just gone back to our own style,” he said. “People are realizing that this is good food. It doesn’t have to be a veal chop with avocado relish and vanilla sauce.”

Already, the chateaubriand and a back-to-the-future shepherd’s pie received such warm welcomes as specials of the day that they have slipped onto the menu.

In addition to the new menu, Houck said, the Pierpont also will add a new dining area, pave the bluff that overlooks U.S. 101 and the ocean, add more outdoor seating and install an outdoor fire pit. These changes are in addition to a renovation of the accommodations at the inn that also will dip into the Pierpont’s past.

“We’re basically restoring the original inn,” he said, “in food and lodging.”

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Ventura’s Leeward Winery will pop open barrels of its Edna Valley Chardonnay, a Pinot Noir from the Bien Nacido Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley and a Napa Valley Merlot for its Winter Barrel Tasting on Saturday and Sunday.

The barrel samples will be available along with the current releases of the same wine varieties. “It gives people a way to see the differences and the similarities,” said Chuck Brigham, owner of Leeward Winery.

To accompany the wine, Nona’s Courtyard Cafe will provide a minestrone soup, and Pineapples restaurant, soon to be renamed the Banana Belt Cantina, will serve a seafood chowder.

Leeward will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Admission is free. The winery is at 2784 Johnson Drive.

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Bob Carter, co-author of “Soup’s On! Hot Recipes From Cool Chefs,” will sign copies of his soup cookbook from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at Holiday House in Oxnard. The book provides more than 125 soup recipes from about 100 chefs. There will be a soup tasting and entertainment. The Holiday House is at 750 South B St. in Heritage Square.