David Kinch’s Next Restaurant Will Serve Italian Influenced Food Including Pizza

While David Kinch readies to reopen his flagship, three-Michelin starred restaurant Manresa this week, he’s also setting his sights on a new project: Mentone, a casual French and Italian influenced restaurant bound for a housing and retail hub outside Santa Cruz. Edible Monterey Bay had news of the name and focus for the previously announced business in Aptos Village, a $40 million project that’s currently under construction.

Mentone takes its name from the Italian spelling for the French town of Menton, a French Riviera village right on the Franco-Italian border. It’s long-contested territory with lots of Italian influences: Menton became part of France in 1860, but was previously a part of the Republic of Genoa.

Substituting the Central California Coast for the Côte d’Azur, Kinch’s restaurant will put a Riviera spin on coastal Californian food. The idea is to take Manresa’s existing French culinary background and lean into Italian cuisine, serving casual food that will include pizza. Conveniently, Manresa Bread, Avery Ruzick’s bakery offshoot of Manresa, mills its own flour — hello, pizza dough — and Kinch is already hinting at mortadella pizza in his future.

The Aptos Village restaurant space has room for 100 diners and includes a large bar. Manresa Bread, meanwhile, is also in expansion mode, with an all-day Campbell cafe location in the works.

• Kinch to Debuy Casual Mediterranean Food at Mentone in Aptos [Edible Monterey Bay]
• Manresa’s David Kinch Plans New Santa Cruz Area Project [ESF]