Culinary extraordinaire Giuseppe Gatta has received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his distinguished service and commitment to the hospitality industry for over 30 years.
Gatta, the previous owner of the iconic Lighthouse Restaurant in Breakers, told the Cayman Compass, “I am extremely pleased and honoured to receive this award.”
Gatta, 67, was among several culinary talent across Cayman recognised and awarded at the 30th annual Edition of the Culinary Awards of Excellence, organised by the Cayman Culinary Society and the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman last month.
The event also featured a culinary competition, with awards presented to winning chefs, bartenders and students.
Gatta said he was “very surprised and excited” when he got the news of his award, adding, “The award means a lot, based on the fact that my fellow hospitality workers have chosen me.”
A life of hospitality
Born in the countryside of Caravaggio, Italy, Gatta, who has made Cayman his home since 1985, cultivated a love and passion for hospitality since the age of 12.
Gatta started his career in a local restaurant in Italy, before attending the Hotel College in San Pellegrino. He says his first experience in the real world of hospitality began at the 5-star Hotel Excelsior in Lugano, Switzerland.
He then joined the cruise liner SS Oceanic in New York and travelled to the most popular Caribbean islands. He was 20 years old when he joined the Alpine army regiment in Merano, Italy, where he assigned to the officers quarters to be the army general’s private waiter.
Gatta later rejoined the SS Oceanic, on which he met his wife Susanna, to whom he has been married for 39 years.
In 1980, he went to work at the Hamilton Princess Hotel in Bermuda, where he met the contact that landed him in Grand Cayman in 1985, when he became the restaurant manager of the Diplomat Restaurant at the Grand Pavilion Hotel and Conference Centre.
In 1986, he began managing the Primavera Restaurant at the Islander complex, where he remained for three years, before becoming manager of the Periwinkle Restaurant.
Then, in 1992, he moved to the Lighthouse restaurant at Breakers, which he managed and co-owned.
Gatta says the most enjoyable part of being in the culinary world “is the fact that I travelled the world, I met world leaders, famous singers, actors, and, most importantly, the people … in the restaurant business”.
These days, Gatta is a hospitality consultant and events coordinator, and trains many young Caymanians in the hospitality industry.
“I couldn’t give up the industry I love so much, and I still have a lot of energy,” he said.
Beyond his career in hospitality, he has spent the last 39 years in Grand Cayman with his wife involved in animal welfare and advocating for the protection of the unwanted and neglected dogs and cats, as co-founder of PAWS Cayman.
Gatta said he is “very optimistic” when it comes to the future of Cayman’s hospitality industry, particularly following what he has witnessed during this year’s local culinary competitions.
“Cayman is now [considered] the gourmet capital of the Caribbean, and I am extremely proud to have been part, for the last 39 years, of building the success that the island is now known for.”
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Congratulations. Well deserved.