Geoffroy Raby came to California a little more than a decade ago from northern France without knowing any English.

But he had the dream of recreating the simple, classic and casual bistro fare of his native land.

Last October, he did just that — opening Cuisinett in San Carlos with the assistance of Consulting Chef Guillaume Bienaime late of Marche in Menlo Park. Bienaime designed the menu, created the recipes and did all the training of the kitchen staff at Cuisinett. He’s even doing the book-keeping there. Raby makes you feel welcome immediately, chatting easily with both regulars and newcomers as if they had just stepped into his own home.

It’s a tiny place with only about 26 seats at small tables fashioned from reclaimed wood. Brick walls, exposed pipes and small arched windows just below the ceiling give the place an industrial charm. It’s already proved a hit. On Friday and Saturday nights, there’s often an hour-long wait to get in.

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It’s been a long time in coming, but Chef Justin Perez, who started refurbishing the old Wilson’s Jewel Bakery in Santa Clara way back in the summer of 2010, has finally moved his Restaurant O Catering company into that site.

As of last Thursday, his catering company, which had been operating in Los Gatos, was up and running in the new site with a huge 4,000-square-foot kitchen, cobbled together with equipment he refurbished, scoured at auctions and purchased new with scrounged funds. The restaurant portion of the space is still to come. But the fact that his team is finally in its new facility is a huge achievement, he says.

“It feels amazing,” Perez says. “It’s all just been unreal.”

When his longtime cooks saw the finished space for the first time, they had tears in their eyes. It’s easy to understand why when you know the horrific and shocking events that came before.

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