- by John Dammone
Salvo Dammone arrived in England with his newly married wife Nunzia in 1955. In 1962 he bought his first espresso bar and café, The Unicorn in Stanningley and the whole family moved in to live “above the shop”. The whole family included, as well as my mother and father, my two elder brothers Gip and Lucci, and my Uncle Pinu and Auntie Pina.
As well as offering the usual staples of the time the café also offered Southern Italian classics like “Braised Steak Pizzaiola”. I personally still remember the Tomato Dip, a nice chunk of bread dipped in my mum's delightful Neapolitan Tomato Sauce.
Uncle Pinu was also renowned for his currant slices which were eagerly devoured by the workers from the adjacent engineering works “George Cohen's 600 Group” next door to the café. The cappuccinos were served in Pyrex glasses and very milky.
Every Friday night the café stayed open till 9pm when young rockers would fill the cafe and spend all evening playing the pin ball machine. The player with the highest pin ball score would get a prize of 200 cigarettes. One of those Friday evenings a load of motorbikes pulled up outside, Mum came to find out what all the kerfuffle was about. Apparently a gang had come to get one of the Rockers in the café called Mick, who lived in Vickersdale. Auntie Pina spotted a boy whose face had suddenly turned white as a sheet, who turned out to be Mick, and led him through the café out of the back door. Mum in the meantime went outside and talked to the Bikers and delayed them for a few minutes before inviting them in to look for their prey who by then was well on his way into Vickersdale.
In a twist of fate the same thing happened at one of my father's other cafés called the Blue Gardenia (also known as The BG ) which was apparently the first rhythm and blues club in the city. The Outer limits was the resident band. Old customers recall Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Rod Stewart amongst others performing here. One old customer Perry recalls, “I remember Salvo was the first foreign person I had ever spoken to. One night as we were leaving he made us all go back down into the basement, gave us a cup of coffee and locked us in. A gang of greasers who had learnt that the mods had moved from Le Conque D'or (affectionately known as The Konk ) to the BG and were coming to get them. We drank free coffee until they got fed up and left. Then your dad let us out.”
The BG was an espresso bar on the ground floor, the aforementioned Rhythm & Blues club in the basement, and on the first floor was a dubious little room where my father used to run a “card school “. The room was very smoky, filled with heavy set Italian Poker players drinking espresso and playing till the early hours of the morning. I was always intrigued with the tables which appeared to have a sort of letter box cut into the middle of the table. This I found out in later years from my father was where the players put the House's cut which was a tanner (6 old pence equivalent to about 2.5 new pence).
The building in the Leeds City Centre housing the Blue Gardenia is long gone but the site is now occupied by Room Restaurant whose layout eerily echoes that of the BG with a Basement club/bar, a restaurant on the ground floor and a first floor area; although the activities on the first floor restaurant are strictly legal now.
In the early 60's my father also owned Gino's coffee bar in Kirkstall opposite where Kirkstall swimming baths used to be. The café had 3 bingo machines, a kind of pin table without flippers but with 24 holes and a bingo card on the front glass. Five in a row on the glass and you got 172 tanners. When we opened the doors at 7am the gamblers would be waiting outside the door. On many days the machines took more money than the café.
In 1972 dad sold up and the whole family relocated back to Salerno in Southern Italy, mum's home town. It was here that my father opened Trattoria Dello Sport . After two years dad, always a person with itchy feet, decided after all he wanted to move back to England and open a true Italian Restaurant. It took 18 months of searching and many visits to all parts of Leeds before my dad found a steak house called ‘The Brunch Grill'. We had found the site we were looking for and once the deal was done we set to in converting the place into an Italian Restaurant. A large part of the building works was done by us and all the labouring and some of the basic construction was done by the family and friends. I remember spending two days dismantling the blue formica tables of the old brunch and unceremoniously consigning them to the skip. At the back of the current Salvo's there is a slightly wonky layer of brickwork which I can claim credit for, if that's the word for it. Right up until the last minute the actual name of the restaurant was not fully decided. There were many names on the shortlist. It nearly ended being called “ Garibaldi's “ and we still have some of the original mock up menus Gip designed for this. Garibaldi famously led his army of "Camice Rosse” (Red shirts) to liberate and unite the whole of Italy in the late 1800's. Family legend has it that Garibaldi's army had two Dammones in it so my family were descendants of Italy 's most famous liberating army. In the end however we found out there was a very popular biscuit at the time with the same name so we eventually decided on simply my father's first name. So Salvo's Restaurant was born and opened the doors for its first customers in August 1976. Nearly 2 million customers have come through the doors since that day over 30 years ago and our family's aim is to keep them coming for many years to come.
- by Gip Dammone
Upon leaving Catering College in 1972, I joined my father Salvo at his restaurant, which he ran with my Uncle Pinu. The restaurant was located in Salerno , in Southern Italy, and I learnt to see food in a completely different light.
Every morning we went to the market to buy fruit, vegetables, fish, poultry and meat for the day. The same old porter, I forget his name, loaded the gear on the back of his cart (as in horse and cart) and pulled it a kilometre to the restaurant for a tip.
The food would be prepared and put in a glass walled fridge in the window of the dining room, so that customers could see what was on offer - there was no menu of course! - I remember whole boiled octopus, roasted artichokes, arancini - little risotto balls with creamy butter in the middle - crumbed and ready to deep fry. Plates of pork, veal and baby goat, ready for the char grill or wood burning ovens. Amazing shiny fresh anchovies, clams, sea bream, mussels, tiny red mullets and seppioline - baby cuttlefish as small as buttons, that were fried whole - served with salt and lemon. Zucchini with mint and vinegar, aubergines al funghetto - cooked "mushroom style" and plaits of pure white mozzarella di buffalo. All these wonderful dishes, and more, contributed towards the colourful and aromatic display which slowly depleted as the evening wore on.
It was customary for waiters to recommend dishes of the day , and the customers almost always left it to them, with one or two requests for favourite dishes. Antipasto, which means - before the meal - could consist of 4 or 5 plates, served one after the other, followed by a pasta dish - then perhaps a dish of peppered mussels, followed by meat or fish with some salad. Fruit - chilled water melon, peaches and grapes - were a refreshing finish to the meal.
I realised that people came to eat because the cooks had a good reputation - it wasn't so important which dishes were on offer from day to day, because it would always be cooked well and the produce was fresh and carefully chosen.
I often look back on those days in Salerno with great fondness and it is with this in mind that we have created our Regional Italian Dinner evenings in the Salumeria. Our evenings transport me back 35 years to the heart of Southern Italy and the hospitality of eating "Italian Style".
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