Giovanni Tromba means no disrespect to any of the 11 other restaurants he has opened since moving to the U.S. from his native Italy in the late 1960s. But No. 12 — also known as The Mad Rose in downtown Ventura — is the farm-to-table place he has always dreamed of having. "Fresh food, made with ingredients that just came out of the ground. That was how we ate growing up back home, but when I was starting out, no one here called it that," Tromba said with a laugh. 

The Mad Rose debuted on July 2 in a former ATM vestibule next to the Century Downtown 10 movie theater. (For a pre-opening story, click on https://bit.ly/2KIbQex.) It marks Tromba's culinary return to Ventura, where he sold Table 13 about a dozen years ago — and where his hillside home was damaged but ultimately spared by the Thomas Fire.