A once-celebrated Bay Area chef was arrested after San Francisco police allege he robbed three banks in a single day, authorities said.
Police identified the suspect as Valentino Luchin, 62, a former executive chef at North Beach's Rose Pistola and the owner of the now-defunct Ottavio in Walnut Creek. Officers said Luchin struck three banks last Wednesday in the city's Central District — an area that includes North Beach, Russian Hill and Union Square — handing handwritten notes to tellers and demanding cash.
Witnesses told police that at one of the targeted banks on the 1100 block of Grant Avenue near Chinatown a teller complied and handed a bag of dollars to the suspect. Within hours, investigators linked the incident to two additional robberies in the neighborhood, and, aided by community tips and members of the San Francisco Police Department's ambassador program, identified Luchin as the person responsible, police said. The department posted images of alleged takings on its Facebook page, according to authorities.
Luchin was booked into San Francisco County Jail on multiple counts of robbery and attempted robbery and remains in custody as he awaits formal charges, police said. San Francisco police declined to release additional details while the investigation continues.
Luchin's arrest marks a sharp fall from a previously prominent culinary career. He immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1993 and rose to local acclaim as executive chef at Rose Pistola, a North Beach restaurant long regarded as a cornerstone of San Francisco's Italian dining scene. He later opened Ottavio in Walnut Creek with his wife; the restaurant operated for six years before closing in 2016.
Financial struggles followed the restaurant's closure. Court filings show the couple defaulted on a Chapter 13 repayment plan in 2015, at one point reporting liabilities of more than $110,000 and assets of roughly $27,000, according to public records cited by local reports.
This is not Luchin's first arrest in connection with a bank robbery. In 2018, he was arrested in Orinda on suspicion of robbing a Citibank, where authorities said the suspect walked out with about $18,000. Surveillance footage from that incident showed a man wearing dark sunglasses, white gloves and a hoodie, and allegedly brandishing a semiautomatic BB gun while demanding large bills. Police recovered both the cash and the BB gun during the arrest at Luchin's home.
In a jailhouse interview following the 2018 arrest, Luchin told the East Bay Times that he regretted the decision and attributed it to desperation after his restaurant's collapse. "I thought it was a good plan... but it was not," he said at the time, adding, "My action wasn't aggressive. It was a fake gun. I don't even know how to load a real gun." He said he had written an apology letter to the bank teller he threatened.
Authorities have not publicly connected the motive for last week's alleged robberies to Luchin's past financial troubles, and investigators cautioned that the case remains active. Prosecutors will review the evidence before formal charges are filed. Court records show Luchin remains held in San Francisco County Jail pending further proceedings.