Giuseppe Panzuto - General Manager

Giuseppe graduated in 1996 from the Hotel and Restaurant Management Institute (Instituto Profesionale Alberghiero di Stato) in his hometown of Naples, Italy. Soon thereafter he began his career by working in hotels on the island of Capri and in Naples. In 1998, Giuseppe ventured out on his own by opening a wine bar in Naples, Il Cenito, which he owned and managed for four years. After selling the wine bar, he decided to fulfill his dream of living in New York City, and was hired to manage Il Mulino, where he worked for two years. Thereafter, he managed Il Gattopardo for two years, another fine-dining Italian restaurant in New York.

While living the American dream he met his wife, Julia, a native Californian, and shortly thereafter they moved to Southern California where Giuseppe began working at the Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel as a manager of the Club Grill. Soon he was promoted to the new Restaurant 162, where he continued as food and beverage manager for over a year.  While at the Ritz Carlton he received his Sommelier degree from the Associazione Italiana Sommeliers in July 2006. Giuseppe's was the first class in the U.S. for the Italian Association of Sommeliers (AIS), the largest sommelier association in the world.

It was while working at the Ritz Carlton that Giuseppe met the mother of the owner of Cantinetta Luca who immediately recommended that Giuseppe talk to her son, David Fink. The rest is history, as Giuseppe moved to Carmel with his wife, Julia, to become general manager of Cantinetta Luca.