Campo opens in Village

It’s taken a decade, but it looks like Mammoth has finally gotten it right in filling one of its signature commercial spaces in the Village at Mammoth.

Campo, a wildly popular new Italian restaurant in downtown Reno recently voted one of America’s Best 20 New Restaurants in 2012 by Esquire Magazine, will open a new location in the Village beginning this weekend.

Campo Owner Mark Estee, who was a co-owner of Moody’s in Truckee for 10 years before opening Campo, said he had never even visited Mammoth before being approached by Levy Restaurant Group. Levy, Mammoth Mountain’s food service purveryor, approached Estee about taking over the old Hyde Lounge spot.

In exchange for use of the name, helping open the restaurant and visiting several times a year in a consulting capacity, Estee will have a part interest in Campo Mammoth.

Estee recruited one of his chefs in Reno, Michael Schreck, to move to Mammoth to become Executive Chef here.

A native of Billerica, Mass. with a Greek and Italian heritage, Estee was a football player in college before developing culinary interests. He worked at the Hyatt Boston post-college before transferring out west to the Hyatt Incline Village in January, 1996.

A father of two, Estee says Campo means “gathering place” and that’s just what he intends to build here, a “neighborhood joint.”

One, however, that happens to have a wood-fired pizza oven imported from Naples, Italy.

Estee noted that 90% of his predecessor, Hyde Lounge’s, sales were booze. “When I looked at their menu, I understood why,” he said.

Clearly, Estee has different sales goals in mind for Campo Mammoth.

(Photo: Lunch)