A goodly number of the diners Giampaolo Pesce welcomed into his savored Sonoma County Italian restaurant arrived hungry to hear and share stories of rigorous bicycle rides taken on challenging local roads.
Pesce, a heartful and generous transplant from Italy, was instrumental in making Riviera Ristorante in Santa Rosa what friend and riding partner Levi Leipheimer, one of the region’s most celebrated cyclists, calls “a hub for the cycling community.”
Though Pesce and his restaurant partners – his brother Luca and Luca’s wife Rita – have always extended their renowned hospitality to all, the Riviera typically rolls at top gear when it is cheek to jowl with cyclists eating and drinking and laughing over tales of the road and trail.
Just now, the colorful Montgomery Drive bistro, its walls tightly bedecked with signed and framed cycling jerseys, is rather blue.
Giampaolo Pesce, who was a professional Italian water polo player before he took up cycling in America and along with Leipheimer conceived in Sonoma County the hugely popular Levi’s GranFondo, died June 9 in Italy. He was 61.
Friends Scott Nydam, left, and Giampaolo Pesce. (Scott Nydam)
Leipheimer wrote in a tribute to him, “The roads are going to feel empty without you.”
A native of the Italian Riviera who moved to California about 40 years ago, Pesce was well known for his stamina. For years, said friend Scott Nydam, a former pro cyclist, “He’d train with Levi (on the roads) four, five days a week, then go work at Riviera all night.”
But for about the past decade, sister-in-law Rita Faglia said, Pesce dealt with impacts of a staph infection that damaged his heart.
Three years ago, Pesce sold his interest in Riviera Ristorante to his brother and Faglia, and he moved to Georgia with his wife, Kathleen.
Earlier this year, Faglia said, her brother-in-law was vacationing and visiting his mother in Genoa, not far from his hometown of Recco, when he fell ill. He had completed a long hospital stay and was preparing to go into a rehabilitation facility when he died from a heart attack.
It is coincidental that Luca and Rita are now in the process of selling Riviera Ristorante.
“We are in escrow,” Rita said Thursday, June 11. The buyer is longtime Riviera staff member Javier Navarette, who tells of intending to keep and honor the current vibe, name, menu and staff.
“I am very happy for them. We’ve known them for 35 years,” Rita said of Navarette and his family.
James Dunn / North Bay Business Journal, November 2016
Riviera Ristorante owners Rita Faglia and Luca Pesce at their restaurant in Santa Rosa. (James Dunn / North Bay Business Journal, November 2016)
It was 20 years ago, 2006, when the Pesce brothers and Rita purchased the former Fabiani restaurant on Montgomery Drive, a couple of blocks west of Memorial Hospital. Giampaolo Pesce had been key to the Fabiani crew for the better part of two decades, and prior to that was a partner in another of the city’s landmark Italian restaurants, The Villa.
Pesce was a young and athletic man when he’d allowed the beauty of California and its myriad opportunities for outdoor recreation and adventures to lure him from one of the loveliest coastal regions of Italy.
He was born Jan. 16, 1965, in the Ligurian town of Recco, a half-hour drive from the most adored village of the Italian Riviera, Portofino.
As a boy, Pesce swam in the Mediterranean Sea and played his town’s foremost sport, water polo – so well that he went professional on Pro Recco, the most decorated team in the world.
He was in his 20s when he visited his brother Luca in Sonoma County – and lost his heart to it. Luca and Rita Pesce introduced him to backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains and far beyond.
Giampaolo Pesce, at left, atop a snowy Mount St. Helena in Napa County with his sister-in-law Rita, brother Luca and friend Charly Flashman, right. (Courtesy of Pesce family)
And they took him onto Sonoma County’s country roads on bicycles. Giampaolo Pesce bought a bike and decided to stay in California.
Upon going into business together at Riviera Ristorante, Giampaolo worked the front of the house and Luca and Rita ran the kitchen. If Giampaolo wasn’t at the restaurant, he was likely cycling.
Given his passion for the sport, his meeting up with Santa Rosa’s Leipheimer was inevitable. Leipheimer employed a punishing regimen on local roads to win the Amgen Tour of California in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and to capture the bronze in the men’s individual road time trial at the ’08 Beijing Olympics.
For years, Pesce would rise early and ride with Leipheimer as he trained. Pesce spoke of why he did that in a video by Carlos Perez of Bike Monkey, a Santa Rosa-based events planning and production company.
Pesce said Leipheimer “didn’t need me to get better, of course. I’m sure he liked the idea of company, though, for those long, long rides, day after day.”
“He was really a special person,” Leipheimer said Friday, June 12, of his extraordinary friend. “Such a genuine, down to earth, warm, quiet person.”
“Everyone liked him.”
Giampaolo Pesce riding his bike. (Courtesy of Pesce family)
Leipheimer savors recalling that a week after his February 2009 victory in the 780-mile Amgen Tour of California, he, Pesce and Scott Nydam agreed to a ride, starting in Occidental. The three of them met there, then Nydam left to fetch the cycling shoes he’d left at home in Sebastopol.
While the other two waited, Pesce spoke with affection of Italy’s gran fondos, or big rides, which are open to competitors at every level of the sport.
Sonoma County’s Levi’s GranFondo, which debuted Oct. 3, 2009, with 3,500 cyclists, “was born out of that conversation,” Leipheimer said.
Thousands of bicyclists start the King Ridge GranFondo on Saturday morning, Oct. 3, 2009 at the Finley Center in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter/The Press Democrat)
Levi Leipheimer finishes his King Ridge GranFondo, Saturday October 3, 2009 at the Finley Center in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2009
AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File
Former professional cyclist Levi Leipheimer was born and raised in Montana but currently lives in Santa Rosa. Before his retirement in 2013, major accomplishments included winning the 2007, 2008 and 2009 editions of the Tour of California. He also won a bronze medal in the time trial at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Today, Leipheimer raises money for various charities through his annual King Ridge GranFondo, a mass bike ride around Sonoma County. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
Deanna Baxman guides riders in the proper direction in Monte Rio during the King Ridge GranFondo, Saturday October 3, 2009 at the Finley Center in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2009
Brian McCleary of Sacramento takes in the sweeping view of the Sonoma coastline, overlooking Goat Rock from Meyers Grade Road, Wednesday September 30, 2009. Meyers Grade is part of the 103 mile route for Saturday’s upcoming King Ridge GranFondo. (Kent Porter / Press Democrat) 2009
Pro riders competing in the 2025 Growler, part of Levi’s Granfondo, strung out along the upper reaches of King Ridge Road. (Jenny Keller)
Levi Leipheimer, middle, leads off Levi Leipheimer’s King Ridge GranFondo, early Saturday, April 23, 2022 in Windsor. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat) 2022
Cyclists competing in the 2025 Growler, a pro race that is part of Levi’s Granfondo, climb a demanding section of King Ridge Road. (Jenny Keller)
Kent Porter / The Press Democrat
Levi’s GranFondo in Windsor, Saturday, April 19, 2025. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
Kent Porter / The Press Democrat file
From left, Levi Leipheimer, Clare Walton and Scott Nydam make a selfie prior to the start of Levi’s GranFondo in Windsor, Saturday, April 14, 2024. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat file)
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Thousands of bicyclists start the King Ridge GranFondo on Saturday morning, Oct. 3, 2009 at the Finley Center in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter/The Press Democrat)
Leipheimer speaks with gratitude for how his friend and the other Pesces made the Riviera such a welcoming place for cyclists to gather and share the glories of their sport and friendships.
“When you walk in,” Leipheimer said, “you see the walls are adorned with legends who have passed through the doors.”
At the Riviera, Giampaolo Pesce and his brother and sister-in-law created a space for experiencing “the fullness of the cycling experience,” said Nydam.
Riviera Ristorante’s wall of keepsake cycling race jerseys from Europe and elsewhere. (Chris Smith/For The Press Democrat)
The Levi Leipheimer wall at the Pesce family’s Riviera Ristorante in Santa Rosa. (Chris Smith/For The Press Democrat)
Brothers Giampaolo Pesce, left and Luca, with Luca’s daughter, Francesca, holding a plate of pasta, outside the family’s Riviera Ristorante in Santa Rosa. (Courtesy of Pesce family)
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Riviera Ristorante’s wall of keepsake cycling race jerseys from Europe and elsewhere. (Chris Smith/For The Press Democrat)
“It took three Italians to help us all make sense of it, to bring us all together, to celebrate it,” he said.
He added, “They say pepper changes flavor, salt enhances it. Giampaolo enhanced what my experience was. He just had a palette for life.”
Pesce is survived by his wife, Kathleen, in Hartwell, Georgia; by his brother and sister-in-law in Santa Rosa and by his mother, Erminia Farinelli of Italy.
His family plans for a celebration of his life.
Chris Smith is a retired Press Democrat reporter and columnist. He can be reached at csmith54@sonic.net.