Chef Sal turns out good tasting — and very pretty — food at Menlo Tavern

Recently we caught up with Louis Salvatore, Executive Chef at Menlo Tavern located within the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park. We’ve long admired how pretty the food that comes out of his kitchen is — and our visit provided some reasons why.

“It’s a bit like painting outside,” he told us. “The goal is to create things and then incorporate those ideas into our food.

“And once we wrote a poem, and then based a course around it.”

Behind the creativity is serious craftsmanship that began with an Italian grandmother who was Chef Sal’s first mentor. Born and raised in San Francisco, he spent significant time with her growing up.

“We’d make fresh tomato sauce,” he recalls. “It was very old school East Coast Italian.  There was a lot of tradition there — and a caring and loving atmosphere. The Wagu meatball on the menu is based on my grandmother’s. We just tweaked it a bit.”

Chef Sal graduated from the California Culinary Academy and  mentors include Mark Sullivan at Mayfield Bakery & Cafe.

“You could say I’ve been lucky being around so many great cooks,” he’s says.

Currently Chef Sal is working on an outdoor BBQ series called Fire and Flame. “It will be our take on a different style of BBQ — grilling from around the world with a twist on the traditional.”

The cooking continues when he’s home with his son and daughter. “It’s the way I relax,”  he says with a smile.

About what comes out of the kitchen at Menlo Tavern, he says:  “The vision — shared by all the staff — is to make good food using fresh as possible ingredients!”

Photos by Linda Hubbard (c) 2024; shown is the beet salad with goat cheese and Rustichella Orecchiette (grilled chicken, basil ricotta, blistered tomatoes).