Interview John & Gip Dammone

What do the Salvo's owners love about their city?

You are in: Food & Drink » Interview »John & Gip Dammone

Interview: John & Gip Dammone

Since winning ‘Best Italian’ on the F Word, have you noticed a difference?
Gip: Yeah, it’s made a massive, massive impact. I mean we’ve been open for 30-odd years and we’ve always been quite busy, and the overwhelming thing with our good old gruff Yorkshire folk is that, after we’d won it, there was a lot of congratulations but plenty of ‘You think I need some loud mouth chef to tell me that I’m eating in a good place? I’ve been eating here for 30 years, I don’t need some jumped up twat to tell me!’

John: People quite often say to us now, why don’t you open up a place in London? You’d just clean up the place. If I had a quid for every time someone said that. But we love Leeds, We don’t want to expand anywhere else, people often say we’re Headingley landmark.

So you’re quite patriotic towards Leeds then?
Gip: Yeah, this is our manor. We’ve been here since the 60s. It was still a bit of a village in the 1970’s. I loved Chapeltown, there were some legendary clubs there back then.

John: One of the things that I love about Leeds, and particularly about Headingley, that you wouldn’t find in London, is walking five minutes down the road from my house and ending up in Meanwood Valley Park, and it was like being in a forest – you wouldn’t believe you were in the middle of a busy metropolis. There’s so many hidden gems.

So has Leeds changed much since you can remember?
Gip: One thing about Leeds is that it’s finally starting to attract tourists, and whatever anybody tells you we ain’t ever had tourists in Leeds. But over the last five years one thing which has jumped out is foreign tourists who you see more in the city centre.

John: What I love about Headingley, and one thing that hasn’t changed in 35 years, is it’s always been a bit cool. This area makes an effort to remain a community, against all the odds really. There’s students constantly moving through, but there’s a really solid community. There’s a big foodie community here, I mean now I think there’s 20 or 30 restaurants here, I think that’s brilliant. There’s a great culture of dining in Leeds I think. I’m really excited about the future of Leeds, I think it’s a great city and I’m proud to be part of it.

You were talking about how many restaurants there are in Headingley, why do you think Salvo’s is still so successful?
John: We believe that we’re not just selling food, that’s just the starting point. We’re absolutely passionate to the point of obsession about finding the best ingredients possible. We fly our mozzarella in from Italy weekly – it’s the best. The crucial thing is we’ve been doing this for 35 years; we don’t rest on our backsides. We’re just in the process of refitting the Salumeria and that’s relaunching in February. And we have just acquired the property next to Salvo’s and we’re just applying for planning permission and should we get that, next year just in time for our 35th anniversary, we hope to have an even larger Salvo’s for all those people we can’t accommodate at the moment. We’re only putting an extra 20 seats, its all about making it a bit more comfortable and spreading people around, so it’s not too noisy.

Salvo’s has been going for 35 years and recently celebrated it’s two millionth customer

Posted on Wednesday 1st September 2010

Salvo's

115 Otley Road, Headingley, Leeds, LS6 3PX

You are in: Food & Drink » Interview »John & Gip Dammone