Chef Giovanni Gaudio is an accomplished chef, food anthropologist, and the author of two cookbooks, ‘Fast and Fresh’ and ‘Slow and Fresh’, Recipes from Northern Italy. He learned to cook in the early part of his life from his Italian Grandmothers, who immigrated to California from the Northern Italian regions of Tuscany and Piedmont. His Italian grandfather was a winemaker both in the US and Italy.

An avid mountain climber and wildlife enthusiast, Chef Giovanni left home as a young adult to survive in the wilderness of Alaska. It was during those six years he connected to the land, hunted, foraged, butchered, and survived alone with his team of sled dogs.

Upon returning to the ‘lower 48’ he trained in traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture. He ran two successful medical practices in New Mexico for twenty-five years. He traveled the country during that time as a motivational speaker and worked as an advocate for alternative medicine as President of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (AAAOM) in Washington, D.C.

A firm believer that food is indeed medicine, Chef Giovanni never left his culinary roots. He worked with chefs, grandmothers, and local food artisans in the US and abroad to learn about traditional recipes, the sourcing of ingredients, and the cultural influences behind them.

Chef Giovanni owned and was Executive Chef of a traditional Italian Trattoria in the wine region of the Northern California foothills. He has been guiding epicurean tours throughout Northern Italy for almost twenty years to teach epicurean enthusiasts about the rich culture of food and wine in northern regions. He also spends part of his time in Italy where he supervises a restaurant in the Italian Alps. Additionally, he has spent the last 20 years traveling throughout Italy to find the ‘lost’ recipes in small towns and villages in an effort to keep tradition, culture, and the anthropology of regional food viable and accessible for others.