Immigrant Son Caffe
543 East Main St.
Ventura, CA 93001
A good rule of thumb when traveling is to be flexible. In other words, go with the flow. Don't be locked into what you decided at home. For me, that means forgetting about the research I did on the restaurants I wanted to check out. The locals always seem to know the best places to eat, and I was hoping our server from last night was not going to lead us astray with her suggestion that we had to give Immigrant Son Caffe a try.
This downtown Ventura spot comes to us from Alessandro Tromba, and the name of his restaurant is a homage to his nickname growing up, as his dad came to the US from Italy in the late '60s. He has restaurants in his blood, as his dad and he have been in the restaurant industry for as long as they can remember.
Immigrant Son just opened at the first of this year, and they have tried to adapt, as all restaurants have, to the challenge that is 2020. They erected an elevated platform in the front of their restaurant when we were here in late October to provide additional seating for their guests. They must be doing something right, as they were just named best new restaurant by the Ventura County Reporter, and they had pretty much a full house when we arrived on that Saturday morning just after 10.
It's funny when I think of Italian cuisine, breakfast never crosses my mind, but they must eat breakfast in Italy, right? Immigrant Son Caffe is open daily from 8 to 2pm. Their breakfast menu does have most of what you'd expect from your typical breakfast places, but there are some nods to Italian fare. The compact lunch menu includes both hot and cold sandwiches, salads, and a trio of desserts, We were here for breakfast though, and needed a good base for our day of exploring Venturra, our adopted home for the weekend. Let's see how everything turned out for us on this visit.
Starting things off for us is their most popular starter, the Bacon Flight ($8). This quartet of bacon came with a strip each of jalapeno, sesame honey, smoked applewood, parmesan garlic, and the spiraled one, pancetta. The bacon itself was pretty high quality and the dusting of the toppings added a nice change of pace to regular bacon. I was partial to the jalapeno, which provided a muted heat, nothing I could not handle, and the sesame honey, which provided a nice contrast between the saltiness of the bacon and the tinge of sweetness from the honey. Definitely, the way to start your meal at Immigrant Son.
Katie zeroed in on the Roberto Omellete ($15) for her first meal of the day. This well-made egg dish was filled with chicken, some strips of poblanos, and mozzarella. She enjoyed this very much. It was filled with plenty of tasty chicken, the poblanos blended a slight amount of heat, and the mozzarella was a nice change of pace from the usual cheddar that most places utilize. Thanks to her keto diet, I was able to have her potatoes and sourdough toast. The toast came with homemade preserves, which were not as sweet as the usual jelly packets you see everywhere else. The potatoes were cubed and seasoned simply. I'd have liked them to have a little more crunch to them, but they were still pretty good. I'm not a fruit person, so we both left the fruit alone, but it did look pretty fresh.
I was really torn between the breakfast carbonara and this Homemade Breakfast Lasagna ($16), and I guess you can see from above which one won out. A breakfast lasagna might seem a little crazy to some, but if you think of it as a distant cousin to the egg casserole you just made for the holidays, it's really kind of the same thing. This was delicious. It was layered with perfectly cooked pasta, spinach, prosciutto, bechamel sauce, folded egg, and crowned with a runny egg on top surrounded by a pool of light marinara and parmesan cheese. It was not as heavy as I was expecting. The yolk from the egg on top tied things together nicely, the bechamel was rich, and the pancetta added just a tinge of savoriness. I'd still like to try the carbonara, but this was a very satisfying and unique first meal of the day.
This Strawberry, Nutella, and Banana Crepe ($15) was a special on the day we were here. I always like to have a sweet and savory item when I go out for breakfast, so this fit the bill perfectly. The crepe got a little overshadowed here because the toppings were so plentiful, but I did not mind that at all. The bananas and strawberries were fresh and sweet, and they did not skimp on the Nutella.
Even though Immigrant Son Caffe was not on my radar before we left for our little weekend getaway, it was an excellent choice for breakfast. The service was warm and friendly, the food we encountered was wonderful, and they were very diligent in practicing all safety protocols. This made for a wonderful start to our day of exploring Ventura before finding time to take a three-hour nap later in the afternoon. Thanks again to our server Taylor from the night before at Lure Fish House for steering us this way. A great suggestion.
Out of five seagulls, (because the Ventura Pier is one of the longest wooden piers in California, providing plenty of space for seagulls to hang out), five being best to zero being worst, Immigrant Son Caffe gets 3.5 seagulls.
For more information about Immigrant Son Caffe, head to their website here: https://www.immigrant-son.com/
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