Your pasta may well be in his hands (Yesterday)

Tag : Fresh Preserved Garlic


At Restaurant C: Fresh Herb Fettuccine tossed with Sauteed WildMushrooms, Onions, Garlic and Rosemary in a Sherry Parmesan CreamSauce.
One would think each pasta was the creation of restaurant kitchensA, B, or C. But one would be wrong.
Steve Salvi, a chef and artisanal pasta maker, makes much ofPittsburgh's restaurants' fresh pasta. He crafts it in his smalloperation in North Huntingdon and delivers to some of the area'stop eateries. Want some? Sorry, but you won't find it in retailoutlets. Mr. Salvi's business is strictly wholesale.
His client list reads like a Who's Who of chefs: Alan Peet atCasbah in Shadyside, Jeff Iovino at Iovino's in Mt. Lebanon, JasonSicher at Enrico's in Shadyside, Joseph Tambellini at JosephTambellini's in Highland Park, Keith Fuller at Six Penn Downtown,Joseph and Jennifer Mico at Pino's in Point Breeze, Mark Swomley atThe Carlton Downtown, Donato Coluccio at Capital Grille Downtown,Ernie Vallozzi at Ernie Vallozzi's in Greensburg, the family atGirasole in Shadyside and Greg Alauzen at soon-to-open Cioppino inthe Strip District. Add to that some corporate catering and countryclubs.
Mr. Salvi doesn't drop off random boxes of spaghetti. He customizesevery pasta to order.
"Some of my best clients are the 40-to-60 seaters," he says. "Thesechefs care about product but don't have the time or the manpower tomake their own pasta.
"My business is built on a chef-to-chef relationship," hecontinues. "My chefs usually call on Monday. They might say 'I'mthinking of this cheese, that vegetable, this herb or that sauce.'Then we talk until we find just the right direction and customizetheir pasta. For something like a wine dinner, maybe a chef willwant, say, a beet gnocchi. My pasta always is a complement to thechef's embellishment or special dish."
Mr. Salvi started his artisanal pasta business in 2005. But he tookthe long way 'round. "I graduated from Pitt with a major inaccounting and business. But I didn't like sitting behind a desk,"he says. "I took an evening job at Morton's, working in the pantry.
"Then I went to Lidia's Pittsburgh, working lunch under ChrisJuliano, the opening chef. He covered most of the stations,including making the pasta. I'm Italian, and I grew up eating goodfood. But it was while working at Lidia's for a year that I learnedto appreciate simplicity."
When the saucier, Seth Tricher, left Lidia's to take the chef's gigat Downtown's La Strada, he took Mr. Salvi with him as sous chef,where part of his job was ordering provisions for the restaurant.He didn't like any of the pasta product that was coming in, and,after trying them all, he decided to make the pasta himself.
"I'd go down to the basement away from the noise and hassle of thekitchen and work making pasta by hand for four or five hours. Mychef's specials were so popular, they'd sell out in 20 minutes.
"Finally, I reasoned that I could work 100 hours for somebody elseor work 100 hours for myself. If you're going to work, you betterdo something you love. And I love to make pasta. I put in my timein restaurant kitchens, and I was ready to go out on my own. Mostimportant to me, though, I wanted to have more time to spend withmy family." When Mr. Salvi uses that oft-used phrase, he means it.
There was the workroom to set up and prep kitchen to customize,while dealing with myriad details. By October 2005, he was ready toproduce.
In the beginning, all of his pastas were handmade and hand-cut andall fillings were piped from a pastry bag. As the business hasgrown, he has added commercial machines from Italy. Now he makesstuffed and extruded or hand-cut flat pastas. He can roll a sheetof fresh pasta 16 inches wide by 6 feet long. He and hisright-hand-man, Paul Mularski, make about 1,000 pounds of pasta aweek from local eggs and flour imported from Naples. "Other thanthe special flour, I try to use as much fresh and local product asI can," says Mr. Salvi, who is a member of the Slow Food movement.
He doesn't market or advertise. On his delivery route, he hearsabout new places opening and sees where places are changing hands.
"I just take along an extra box or two of fresh pasta on mydeliveries," he says. "I knock on the door, hand a box of pasta tothe chef and say 'Try this. Call me if you like it.'" In thistry-it-you'll-like-it scenario, the chefs check out the pasta, andif it's a good fit for their menu, a new relationship is born.
One of his first clients was Eric Wallace, back when he wasexecutive chef at Casbah. Chef Wallace is now at Lidia's, where Mr.Salvi learned how to make pasta. "Steve is one of the most sincerepeople that I have ever met," Chef Wallace says. "He makes greatpasta and has a deep understanding and love for what he does."
Ah, but some chefs asked Mr. Salvi to deliver in plain white boxes-- no label, no logo -- so they could pass off his pasta as theirown homemade. No dice. Each box of Mr. Salvi's pasta bears a logoshowing a hand gently lifting pasta strands and the word fede.
"In Italian, fede is the word for faith," he says. "There's a lot of meaning to mein that word. It is my belief in Christ, and the belief that Heprovides in business as well as in life.
"I feel blessed with the chefs that I have as clients and thepeople I have met."