On a crisp August morning, Antonio Cagnolo stepped onto a 48-foot Mussel Ridge fishing boat based in Huntington Harbour. The longtime Orange County restaurateur was getting back to his roots. In his native Italy, Cagnolo’s father was a butcher, farmer and fisherman. The two used to catch bounty from the Mediterranean.

Now, many decades later and floating atop another sea, Cagnolo is again looking for fresh catch. Cagnolo opened his flagship restaurant, Antonello Ristorante, in Santa Ana across from Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza in 1979. Its sister establishment, Quattro Caffe, opened in 1991 in South Coast Plaza.