Salvatore De Riso is actually a cook. He is so by training and because in his pastry shop in Minori you don't only eat lemon delights and babà. Here is what we ate and what he told us. Including the project of the new restaurant and an upcoming opening in Milan!
Born in 1966, only after having studied as a cook and having spent seven years in the kitchens of the best hotels on the Amalfi Coast, De Riso discovered that pastry was his great passion. So he began with his mother's electric whip and Minori's baker's oven, on loan, to follow his path.
Today it has premises in Minori, Rome, Avellino, and then a new one in sight in Minori (e soon one in Milan), sends sweets all over Italy and is called for banquets and weddings around the world. But if you pass by Minori it is there, between the pastry shop and the pastry shop in Tramonti and the selfies with customers.
Sal De Riso is a star, because he has spent decades on television, has won awards on prizes as a pastry chef worldwide and his panettone always ends up among the favorites of the year in blind tastings. But here he is a star because he gives work to entire families, never closes while the Amalfi coast hibernates and has brought Minors in the geographical maps of travelers of taste. People place the children in his hand to take pictures, recall the complete formation of his pastry shop window in the 92/93 season and leave dedications on the napkins, jealously guarded in a display case; all under the satisfied eyes of foreign tourists who have the definitive confirmation of being in the right place.
Profiteroles, not lemon delights
The Sal De Riso Costa d’Amalfi pastry shop in Minori is large, beautiful and sells everything: cakes and single portions, ice cream parlors, cafes, pizzas, bistros and aperitifs. A riot in the window, people at all hours, out of line and a continuous round of tables from early morning to late evening (with a change of placemats and uniforms to mark the time of day). Everyone eats what they like, and so there are those who have breakfast while others enjoy themselves typical dishes of Minori, Great parmigiana of aubergines or an ice cream cone, until there is almost no room left for a Lemon Delight. Indeed, a profiterole: because in reality the king of Delizia started from there, with a little innovation and with the intuition of dressing a classic chocolate with Mediterranean flavors.
Whatever you do with one hand you have to harvest and with the other you have to sow
Since 1988, sweet and savory
Exactly the same thing happened to us, we arrived on pilgrimage from Milan during a visit to the Amalfi Coast. We wanted to have breakfast, say goodbye to Sal and go on and it ended like this: three hours at the table, a friend on vacation who joins us at the table, De Riso who chats for hours, a pizza, a parmigiana, a lemon spritz, a baba and a tasting of sweets. All by looking at the photos of wedding cake for Arab emirs made up of hundreds of delicacies and hearing the stories of the loads of citrus and apricots processed every year in the laboratory a few kilometers away. Between pieces of the interview, interruptions by fans who want to take a picture with the legendary Sal.
«I opened the first laboratory in Minori in 1988 and immediately added a salty part with sandwiches and pieces of rotisserie. It makes the place live all day and allows those who come to discover flavors that would otherwise become impossible to find like the real traditional dishes. Recipes of Minori that nobody knows like Ndunderi, gnocchi with 70% ricotta and basil, rolled by hand one by one on a wooden board. Restaurants no longer make these dishes. And so in fact customers never leave us, lunch and dinner, from those who come for the walks to the customers of the most luxurious hotels in search of traditional flavors . Sal De Riso preserves, hands down and innovates, in fact it was also the first to make the single portions, the individual slices of cake, the glasses and to make the pastry shop a reference place for the local community. They even have a special service for dogs, with a bowl of ready-made water and biscuits made by them with annurka apples, carrots and almonds, without sugar.
The new restaurant and the vegetable garden
"Hospitality is everything. In fact, I'll open a real restaurant next door , he says, pointing to some closed shop windows across the street. "I only slowed down because of Covid, but it will be for next year. I want to prepare grilled meats and fish and stuffed fried pizza, freshly made and fried in front of people. It will be the continuation of Sal De Riso, with an important open cellar with wines from Campania and from all over Italy, craft beers … and then I will take a plot of land to make a vegetable garden. It will cost me more, but the quality of the products will be better . And then he looks at me: "Remember," he tells me, "whatever you do: with one hand you have to reap and with the other you have to sow".
And while people line up waiting for their turn to sit down, to buy a cabaret of pastries and to shake his hand, he takes his leave: «I'm proud of my place, of my people. There are 65 people now up at the Tramonti laboratory, 45 just in production, divided into departments of 6 people who work together as a team to do a job. Candied fruit, icings for desserts, jams, we do everything ourselves . Other than small industry: great craftsmanship!
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