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Salvo’s has been feeding the students and ex-students of Headingley for years. Students never seem to change much, but ex-students do – and Salvo’s has changed too.
The good news is that it has changed for the better.
Most of us like to think we have improved as we’ve grown up, picking up the odd good influence here and dropping one or two outdated ideas there.
Salvo’s is a bit like that. The pizza base is still there but the topping has changed. It is not authentic Italian, but where others have been happy to trade down their authenticity to cater for the prawn cocktail market, Salvo’s has traded upwards. The result is a menu still recognisably Italian, but which acknowledges the cosmopolitanism of modern diners.
So, among the starters for example, we have insalate picante (a mixed leaf salad tossed with flash-fried peppered chicken, roasted chicken and olive oil dressing), zuppa di broccoli e Stilton and even pollo tandoori.
It is an approach which obviously works, so you will probably have to wait at te bar for a table. Like the rest of the room, it’s not exactly over-spacious, but when the welcome is as warm as this, it is cosy rather than cramped.
Miraculously, Salvo’s is untouched by any interior designer. The walls may be ragged , but there are no ruched blinds, pink napkins or giant mirrors. Tables are undraped and the walls are decorated with an eccentric mix of black and white photos and touristy Egyptian papyrus prints.
The music is cool but the atmosphere is warm, helped by the pizza oven at one end of the room and the open hatch to the kitchen, where occasionally leaping flames catch the eye alarmingly.
Cooking is appropriately robust, but presented in the modern style. So boudin blanc, a sausage of chicken and sweet bread, is split and dished up with a dollop of sauce and a well-dressed mixed leaf salad.
Tagliatelle valtelina, served with a wild mushroom sauce and confit of roasted red pepper, actually tastes of mushrooms – even if they aren’t all wild – and avoids the blandness that often makes restaurant pasta dishes a depressing experience.
Somebody beat us to the last char-grilled fillet of mullet in a chilli, coriander and lime sauce, but the seafood sew – also from the specials menu – was a spectacular heap of shellfish arranged around a hunk of cod on a tomato based sauce.
Nothing subtle about that one. Unlike the agnello Madeira: three pieces of lamb which would have been a good deal pinker, but which were nevertheless arranged on a fine Maderia sauce. Even the decorative radish was carved.
Unusually for an Italian restaurant, veal makes no appearance on this menu. Vegetarians will find plenty to go at and suitable dishes are well signposted.
The bill for three courses came to £42 for two, including wine, but excluding service. It could have been much cheaper – pizzas start at just under a fiver.
House wine is £7.25, but a bottle of Pinot Grigio at £9.95 was recommended from a short list that includes Australia, Chile, California and – another sign of changing tastes – South Africa.
It can’t be that long since a South African wine on a Headingley wine list would have brought picketing students to the door.
One niggle: the tables are not too close for comfort - but they are too close when there are smokers on both sides.
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