This was our first time here and our experience was incredible. The food was awesome. They even offer a Gluten Free pasta option. We plan on returning again, often.
Jessica M.
This is a rustic, cozy, family friendly neighborhood gem in the Ravenna/Roosevelt neighborhood. I've personally been going there for over 20 years and I love the authentic food they serve. If you're lucky enough to come on a night the actual owner/chef Salvatore is there you are in for a treat. He's friendly & makes you feel so welcome. It's nice to go with a group so you can try an array of the appetizers, all really excellent but 2 of my favorites that were on the special list, the burrata with prosciutto ...their cute is a tad thicker than how I normally have it but it works well with the rich, creamy burrata drizzled with some good olive oil and topped with some fresh herbs...so good with an order of house Como bread. The seasonal sautéed mushrooms are so good...next time I might just have that for my dinner, so tasty! We were there to celebrate the birthday if a friend who recently unexpectedly passed, and Salvatore brought all 9 of us in our party a bowl of soup that our friend loved. It's a simple chicken broth with a bit of carrots and potatoes & very delicate, moist veal meatballs. Salvatore said it was a dish his mom would make for him if he had a sports meet. It was light & delicious, and you could tell it was made with love. For dinner I usually have the Veal with artichokes and a demi glaze wich comes with a side of simple penne pasta...and I normally can't finish it, good size portions or is it all the appetizers?! Both! We normally order an extra dish for the table like Carbonara so everyone can just have a taste of the rich dish but this time we selected a squid ink pasta dish topped with a rich, creamy sauce & seared scallops. Yummmmmmmm! But glad not to have it as my entire meal, way too heavy for me. At the end of the meal when we were all pretty much stuffed, they brought an order of Profiteroles covered in chocolate and layered with vanilla ice cream with a candle in it, for our dearly departed friend. It was very thoughtful & just the right amount as we passed the dish around and each got a couple of bites...after we sang Happy Birthday of course. Great place to celebrate with friends or family...but hurry, they are closing up shop soon, I don't know the end date!
Katie P.
Unequivocally the best Italian I've tried in Seattle!!! I visited almost exclusively for the squid ink pasta with scallops, and it was exquisite. Perfectly cooked noodles, decadent, and flavorful. A unique dish that you can't find many places. The desserts were also excellent - I tried both the ice cream and tiramisu. The tiramisu is great for those who don't like overly sweet desserts - the espresso flavor was very prominent ! Our service was very friendly and amiable. So expect that service will be slow - it was busy and they appear understaffed. But the wait was more than worth it.
Michelle S.
Excellent pasta dishes. The steak specials weren't worth the special price! We were a party of 9 and I notified them by email ahead of time per their site's instructions. However, we were smooshed in because, they admitted, they don't check their email. Grumble. Then the service fee/automatic tip for our large party was 20%. That explained the mediocre service. When a place tips themselves, their motivation to do well tends to dissipate. I don't mind some extra charge, but leave me room to tip. Although the pasta dishes were delicious, I wouldn't return for all the other reasons.
Katherine Lee
I love my uncle Salvatore!!
Ali D.
Service was a little behind but our server was only 1 of 2 people serving the whole restaurant so kudos to the elder gentleman with the extravagant service. He was awesome! Food was good and the bread pudding for dessert was great! It was soooooo good that I didn't have time to take a pic. Delicious!!!!!!!
Andrew Bell
Burnt garlic and completely missed anchovies in the pasta. Had to ask after a while to fill water. Could have been a lot of
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 2
Service: 1
M T.
Six of us from our family group dined at Salvatores on a Friday evening to celebrate a birthday. All the tables were full and close together. Our family had a great time in spite of the very loud background noise. (One star deducted.) We would have preferred a quieter atmosphere to enjoy each other's company. The proprietor was a long-time personal friend of one in our party of 6. Our waitstaff was exceptionally attentive and scrambled to serve several other groups. I sampled pasta in a cream sauce and it was delicious. The group started with a large platter of anti-pasta that had a perfect combination of foods, artichokes, beets, prosciutto, greens, all drizzled with olive oil. I made it my small dinner, adding a few prawns. The birthday celebrant was complimented the homemade tiramisu with a single lit candle. Extra spoons allowed all of us to sample this decadent delight. Our host ordered us a second round. The tiramisu is not to be missed. Wonderful! The restaurant is located in an older neighborhood with street parking challenges as we came in multiple cars. If you're going for the food, Salvatore's does not disappoint. Prices are on the higher end, however you will experience Old World service and attention to detail.
Snow Rose
Wow! An unassuming place from the outside, but a magical food haven inside. I ate everything and did not let a single drop go to waste.We were greeted with amazing staff all around the entire evening and seated by Salvatore himself.Food started with bread that came with olive oil and parmesan; it was soft delicious bread with a crust that wasn't so hard it hurt, with authentic and outstanding olive oil, and parmesan cheese (hard to go wrong with cheese). Also a special appetizer of garlic butter mushrooms; they came warm and I put some on top of the olive oil bread for a stellar flavor outcome.Then a starter salad. I ordered the Verde, it default comes with Italian dressing. I ordered it as listed on menu, while lamenting to myself internally that it wasn't balsamic. My salad came and miraculously happened to have balsamic on it! It was literally the "mistake" I was dreaming of (hahaha) so I joked to my dining partner that even their mistakes were beyond my wildest dream of delicious. I didn't bother to say anything to the staff because it was a beyond pleasant surprise.Main course was a Chianti wine and the special of wild boar with spinach pasta. The wine was nice and medium to mid-full bodied, a good compliment for wild game like boar. The boar and spinach pasta... absolutely could not have been better. The meat was flavorful, delicious (not gamey at all), and fall-apart tender. The noodles were perfectly al dente (a minor spot was less cooked from noodles sticking together but this is not a "real" complaint because it means the pasta is fresher) and soaked in the most beautifully complex sauce that had the perfect note of rosemary.Desert was tiramisu. Not the US kind... less cream, semi-bitter chocolate sprinkled on top. Someone did their homework on this tiramisu and balanced the slightly bitter chocolate note with the coffee in the soaked sponge perfectly.2 appetizers, one salad, two special entrees, a bottle of wine, and one tiramisu for ~$140 not including tip.A neighborhood gem I overlooked for far too long. Absolutely recommend.Kid-friendliness: Definitely more upscale so okay for kids but maybe not so much the best place to bring a toddler or baby.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Tiramisu
Jenn C.
After reading other reviews I would say there is a pretty consistent theme - food is pretty good, service is just ok. The biggest issue for me is that I bit into a piece of plastic while eating the salad, informed the server of it, he took it away and came back to say "i think that was a piece of the plastic container that came off when we opened it, sorry about that!" Then there was absolutely nothing else they did about it - I thought they would comp the salad or at least discounted, or maybe not charge us for the bread basket, something small like that - but nope, nothing! Other than that, we enjoyed the food. They only offer one red and white by the glass - a Chianti and a Pinot Grigio - but when my partner asked for a second round of his red wine, interestingly they poured a different wine than his first glass. Maybe they rotate what bottles are open and the first one ran out? The aforementioned salad was not bad - very simple - arugula with diced Gorgonzola and beets, with a white balsamic dressing. Some of the leaves did not look in the best shape, and of course the plastic kind of ruined it. The bread in the bread basket was good - crusty and crisp on the outside but soft and chewy inside. You are given some dishes of herbed olive oil and fresh grated Parmesan on the side (my favorite part)The Siciliana pizza was pretty good, heavy on the olive/capers so you need to enjoy that flavor profile. The dough had an interesting texture, not as chewy/elastic as some other pizza doughs. The squid ink pasta with scallops (and I think pancetta bits), was very tasty. Comes in a really rich cream based sauce but it wasn't overwhelmingly creamy. You get 3 scallops. Pasta was nicely Al dente. Not a huge portion but not tiny either. Their completely cavalier attitude in response to me biting into plastic in my food was disappointing and left a bad taste in my mouth, to the point that I'm on the fence about coming back again - especially after reading other reviews. Which is too bad because I did actually enjoy the food.
Salvatore serves up ITALIAN food the way I have loved going on 30 years!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Daniel A. J.
Salvatore is one of my wife and I's favorite date night spots. The handmade pastas are delicious, the appetizers are amazing and the atmosphere it great. 4 stars for this time out due to slowness of service. Normally they are much faster, but it was a busy night. I got the Chicken Lasagna and my wife got the Bucatini with bolognese. Both were delicious!
Toshitha J.
I went to Salvatore Ristorante on a Saturday night with 3 of my friends. Thankfully, we had the good sense to reserve a table ahead of time because the place was jam-packed. Our waiter was really friendly and made us feel like we were part of the family.To start, we kept it simple with some bread and olive oil as our appetizer and then dove right into the main courses. Our party ordered the portobello ravioli, the gnocchi al gorgonzola, and the linguini in bianco. The ravioli had some seriously tasty filling, making it probably the best ravioli I've ever had in Seattle.Now, the gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce and walnuts was a real winner. The flavor combo was just spectacular and easily my top pick. The linguini in bianco came in at a close second. The sauce had clear traces of seafood extract and the linguini was cooked to the perfect al dente. Overall Salvatore has to be the best Italian place that I've been to in Seattle so far. Can't wait to head back there soon!
Ryan Dewey
Great traditional Italian
Irina Mallahan
I will never find a bad thing to say abt Salvatores! He treats us like family & always make sure that everything is perfect which is always is!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Fettuccine Della Casa, Bruschetta
This was our first time here and our experience was incredible. The food was awesome. They even offer a Gluten Free pasta option. We plan on returning again, often.
This is a rustic, cozy, family friendly neighborhood gem in the Ravenna/Roosevelt neighborhood. I've personally been going there for over 20 years and I love the authentic food they serve. If you're lucky enough to come on a night the actual owner/chef Salvatore is there you are in for a treat. He's friendly & makes you feel so welcome. It's nice to go with a group so you can try an array of the appetizers, all really excellent but 2 of my favorites that were on the special list, the burrata with prosciutto ...their cute is a tad thicker than how I normally have it but it works well with the rich, creamy burrata drizzled with some good olive oil and topped with some fresh herbs...so good with an order of house Como bread. The seasonal sautéed mushrooms are so good...next time I might just have that for my dinner, so tasty! We were there to celebrate the birthday if a friend who recently unexpectedly passed, and Salvatore brought all 9 of us in our party a bowl of soup that our friend loved. It's a simple chicken broth with a bit of carrots and potatoes & very delicate, moist veal meatballs. Salvatore said it was a dish his mom would make for him if he had a sports meet. It was light & delicious, and you could tell it was made with love. For dinner I usually have the Veal with artichokes and a demi glaze wich comes with a side of simple penne pasta...and I normally can't finish it, good size portions or is it all the appetizers?! Both! We normally order an extra dish for the table like Carbonara so everyone can just have a taste of the rich dish but this time we selected a squid ink pasta dish topped with a rich, creamy sauce & seared scallops. Yummmmmmmm! But glad not to have it as my entire meal, way too heavy for me. At the end of the meal when we were all pretty much stuffed, they brought an order of Profiteroles covered in chocolate and layered with vanilla ice cream with a candle in it, for our dearly departed friend. It was very thoughtful & just the right amount as we passed the dish around and each got a couple of bites...after we sang Happy Birthday of course. Great place to celebrate with friends or family...but hurry, they are closing up shop soon, I don't know the end date!
Unequivocally the best Italian I've tried in Seattle!!! I visited almost exclusively for the squid ink pasta with scallops, and it was exquisite. Perfectly cooked noodles, decadent, and flavorful. A unique dish that you can't find many places. The desserts were also excellent - I tried both the ice cream and tiramisu. The tiramisu is great for those who don't like overly sweet desserts - the espresso flavor was very prominent ! Our service was very friendly and amiable. So expect that service will be slow - it was busy and they appear understaffed. But the wait was more than worth it.
Excellent pasta dishes. The steak specials weren't worth the special price! We were a party of 9 and I notified them by email ahead of time per their site's instructions. However, we were smooshed in because, they admitted, they don't check their email. Grumble. Then the service fee/automatic tip for our large party was 20%. That explained the mediocre service. When a place tips themselves, their motivation to do well tends to dissipate. I don't mind some extra charge, but leave me room to tip. Although the pasta dishes were delicious, I wouldn't return for all the other reasons.
I love my uncle Salvatore!!
Service was a little behind but our server was only 1 of 2 people serving the whole restaurant so kudos to the elder gentleman with the extravagant service. He was awesome! Food was good and the bread pudding for dessert was great! It was soooooo good that I didn't have time to take a pic. Delicious!!!!!!!
Burnt garlic and completely missed anchovies in the pasta. Had to ask after a while to fill water. Could have been a lot of
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 2
Service: 1
Six of us from our family group dined at Salvatores on a Friday evening to celebrate a birthday. All the tables were full and close together. Our family had a great time in spite of the very loud background noise. (One star deducted.) We would have preferred a quieter atmosphere to enjoy each other's company. The proprietor was a long-time personal friend of one in our party of 6. Our waitstaff was exceptionally attentive and scrambled to serve several other groups. I sampled pasta in a cream sauce and it was delicious. The group started with a large platter of anti-pasta that had a perfect combination of foods, artichokes, beets, prosciutto, greens, all drizzled with olive oil. I made it my small dinner, adding a few prawns. The birthday celebrant was complimented the homemade tiramisu with a single lit candle. Extra spoons allowed all of us to sample this decadent delight. Our host ordered us a second round. The tiramisu is not to be missed. Wonderful! The restaurant is located in an older neighborhood with street parking challenges as we came in multiple cars. If you're going for the food, Salvatore's does not disappoint. Prices are on the higher end, however you will experience Old World service and attention to detail.
Wow! An unassuming place from the outside, but a magical food haven inside. I ate everything and did not let a single drop go to waste.We were greeted with amazing staff all around the entire evening and seated by Salvatore himself.Food started with bread that came with olive oil and parmesan; it was soft delicious bread with a crust that wasn't so hard it hurt, with authentic and outstanding olive oil, and parmesan cheese (hard to go wrong with cheese). Also a special appetizer of garlic butter mushrooms; they came warm and I put some on top of the olive oil bread for a stellar flavor outcome.Then a starter salad. I ordered the Verde, it default comes with Italian dressing. I ordered it as listed on menu, while lamenting to myself internally that it wasn't balsamic. My salad came and miraculously happened to have balsamic on it! It was literally the "mistake" I was dreaming of (hahaha) so I joked to my dining partner that even their mistakes were beyond my wildest dream of delicious. I didn't bother to say anything to the staff because it was a beyond pleasant surprise.Main course was a Chianti wine and the special of wild boar with spinach pasta. The wine was nice and medium to mid-full bodied, a good compliment for wild game like boar. The boar and spinach pasta... absolutely could not have been better. The meat was flavorful, delicious (not gamey at all), and fall-apart tender. The noodles were perfectly al dente (a minor spot was less cooked from noodles sticking together but this is not a "real" complaint because it means the pasta is fresher) and soaked in the most beautifully complex sauce that had the perfect note of rosemary.Desert was tiramisu. Not the US kind... less cream, semi-bitter chocolate sprinkled on top. Someone did their homework on this tiramisu and balanced the slightly bitter chocolate note with the coffee in the soaked sponge perfectly.2 appetizers, one salad, two special entrees, a bottle of wine, and one tiramisu for ~$140 not including tip.A neighborhood gem I overlooked for far too long. Absolutely recommend.Kid-friendliness: Definitely more upscale so okay for kids but maybe not so much the best place to bring a toddler or baby.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Tiramisu
After reading other reviews I would say there is a pretty consistent theme - food is pretty good, service is just ok. The biggest issue for me is that I bit into a piece of plastic while eating the salad, informed the server of it, he took it away and came back to say "i think that was a piece of the plastic container that came off when we opened it, sorry about that!" Then there was absolutely nothing else they did about it - I thought they would comp the salad or at least discounted, or maybe not charge us for the bread basket, something small like that - but nope, nothing! Other than that, we enjoyed the food. They only offer one red and white by the glass - a Chianti and a Pinot Grigio - but when my partner asked for a second round of his red wine, interestingly they poured a different wine than his first glass. Maybe they rotate what bottles are open and the first one ran out? The aforementioned salad was not bad - very simple - arugula with diced Gorgonzola and beets, with a white balsamic dressing. Some of the leaves did not look in the best shape, and of course the plastic kind of ruined it. The bread in the bread basket was good - crusty and crisp on the outside but soft and chewy inside. You are given some dishes of herbed olive oil and fresh grated Parmesan on the side (my favorite part)The Siciliana pizza was pretty good, heavy on the olive/capers so you need to enjoy that flavor profile. The dough had an interesting texture, not as chewy/elastic as some other pizza doughs. The squid ink pasta with scallops (and I think pancetta bits), was very tasty. Comes in a really rich cream based sauce but it wasn't overwhelmingly creamy. You get 3 scallops. Pasta was nicely Al dente. Not a huge portion but not tiny either. Their completely cavalier attitude in response to me biting into plastic in my food was disappointing and left a bad taste in my mouth, to the point that I'm on the fence about coming back again - especially after reading other reviews. Which is too bad because I did actually enjoy the food.
Restaurantji Recommends
Salvatore serves up ITALIAN food the way I have loved going on 30 years!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Salvatore is one of my wife and I's favorite date night spots. The handmade pastas are delicious, the appetizers are amazing and the atmosphere it great. 4 stars for this time out due to slowness of service. Normally they are much faster, but it was a busy night. I got the Chicken Lasagna and my wife got the Bucatini with bolognese. Both were delicious!
I went to Salvatore Ristorante on a Saturday night with 3 of my friends. Thankfully, we had the good sense to reserve a table ahead of time because the place was jam-packed. Our waiter was really friendly and made us feel like we were part of the family.To start, we kept it simple with some bread and olive oil as our appetizer and then dove right into the main courses. Our party ordered the portobello ravioli, the gnocchi al gorgonzola, and the linguini in bianco. The ravioli had some seriously tasty filling, making it probably the best ravioli I've ever had in Seattle.Now, the gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce and walnuts was a real winner. The flavor combo was just spectacular and easily my top pick. The linguini in bianco came in at a close second. The sauce had clear traces of seafood extract and the linguini was cooked to the perfect al dente. Overall Salvatore has to be the best Italian place that I've been to in Seattle so far. Can't wait to head back there soon!
Great traditional Italian
I will never find a bad thing to say abt Salvatores! He treats us like family & always make sure that everything is perfect which is always is!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Fettuccine Della Casa, Bruschetta