Artisan Meats Specialist

Juan Penzini-Granier is the founder and academic director of the Artisan Culinary School. With a career spanning over 15 years, Juan is a seasoned professional with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the culinary industry. Juan’s culinary journey began with formal training in baking, which he then complemented with education as a professional cook, then turned his career towards the managerial part of the culinary business. He went on to own and manage several successful restaurants in Venezuela, where he was awarded the largest concessions system at the most prestigious country club in the city. He also had the opportunity to go back to the school where he started his career, but this time as a kitchen instructor and food and beverage cost professor. Then, seeking to expand his horizons, Juan moved to Italy to pursue an education in professional charcuterie and cheese making and ended up being the director of an international culinary school. As a teacher and instructor, Juan has trained over 500 people from more than 45 countries, instilling in them a passion for culinary artistry and a commitment to excellence. With the Artisan Culinary School, Juan aims to offer a unique and immersive culinary education experience that empowers aspiring food artisans to realize their full potential. Juan’s dedication to culinary education and his vast expertise make him an invaluable leader and mentor at the Artisan Culinary School. His vision and leadership drive the school with excellence and inspire its students to reach new heights in their culinary careers.

After studying at the Ferrandi School of Culinary Arts following a literary baccalaureate, and growing up surrounded by baroque music and travel, Laëtitia Visse brings an unexpected edge to the new generation of French cuisine—driven by her boundless love for hearty, no-nonsense food.

She honed her skills alongside several acclaimed chefs before meeting Thomas Brachet at Les Arlots, the renowned Parisian bistro where she discovered the pleasures of house-made sausages, caillettes, and other charcuterie specialties. Since settling in Provence in 2017, Laëtitia has been determined to revive the butchery and charcuterie traditions of French cooking. In the summer of 2020, she opened her restaurant in Marseille: La Femme du Boucher.

Every winter, Laëtitia joins the Artisan Culinary School to teach the Artisan French Charcuterie course, where she shares her expertise in ultra-traditional French recipes and showcases the creative use of offal in charcuterie.

Dr. Bill Schindler is the author of Eat Like a Human: Nourishing Foods and Ancient Ways of Cooking to Revolutionize Your Health and is an internationally known archaeologist, primitive technologist, and chef. He founded and directs the Eastern Shore Food Lab with a mission to preserve and revive ancestral dietary approaches to create a nourishing, ethical, and sustainable food system and, along with his wife, Christina operates the Modern Stone Age Kitchen, a restaurant and sourdough bakery designed to provide nourishing food created using ancestral approaches maximizing safety, nutrient density and bioavailability to the community. His work is the focus of Wired magazine’s YouTube series, Basic Instincts and Food Science, and he co-starred in the National Geographic Channel series The Great Human Race, which aired in 2016 in 171 countries. Bill will join us during the spring each year. Sharing his knowledge of cheesemaking, bread baking, and vegetable and fruit conservation.