Pizza Salvatore: World class, reasonable Italian

Area:  1 block south of Fushimi Station Exit 4 伏見駅
Restaurant:  Pizza Salvatore Cuomo  ピッツァサルヴぁトーレクオモ
Map and Website:  http://www.salvatore.jp/restaurant/fushimi/access.html

Hours:  1st Floor Deli-bar area 11am-11pm

It was a nice surprise to find out that I could order my lunch at 2:30, and slowly enjoy it; the sign outside said lunch was served until 3pm, so I was expecting to have to quickly gobble and go, but that apparently is for the lunch buffet.

Being called Pizza Salvatore, I went with the pizza lunch (850円, includes a 23 cm pizza, salad and drink).  The salad had a nice crunch owing to the carrots and croutons. The dressing was mild and went well with the sweet red onions, although I have a feeling it was not all that Italian.  I'm pretty sure it did have soy sauce in it since combined with the croutons, I felt as if I was eating senbei (Japanese rice crackers).  This is not at all a bad thing, just not very Italian. 

The margherita pizza had real mozzarella, not that processed stuff. The dough was so thin that it difficult to pick up, just like the thin, chewy type in Naples. The sauce was tomato based and tasted of freshness only (none of that canned or bottled sour stuff).  Apparently they use a blend of extra virgin olive oil and sunflower oil, so it is more mild in flavour.  The milky buffalo mozzarella and basil matched perfectly with this blend.  A simple, but deliciously great pizza.

The coffee was a long espresso that used nicely roasted beans. 

Other menu items, available until 5pm include chicken curry (I'm guessing it's Japanese style), and a panini set (prosciutto, grilled chicken or BLT), all includes a drink and salad.  For an extra 150円 more you can add a sweet, but I had to return to work, so it will have to wait til next time. 

It wasn't long before I came back to try this place again.  This time, I went for the prosciutto panini lunch.  Here, they use pizza dough for the bun, so I was expecting good things.  The salad and coffee were the same and consistently good with my last visit.  The panini was a thin pita shaped dough that had the same chewy texture as the pizza.  Besides the prosciutto, there was also lettuce, tomato and onion.  The prosciutto seemed of good quality, soft, pulling apart easily, the saltiness did not overpower the flavor from the strands of fat infusing the thin slices.  I can definitely separate it from the prosciutto commonly found in the grocery stores. The mayonnaise was a good addition, bringing together the veggies and the prosciutto.  However, the tomato was a bit dry and had a mushy, gritty texture.  

It might be a good sign that 2 Italians walked in to enjoy this retaurant's Italian food.  

This time I went for the dessert which today was roll cake, not so Italian and standard.  Not the most milky or creamy roll cake I've had, but for only 150円 more, not bad. 

I've been pretty impressed with this restaurant, so I came back again to try some dishes from the a la carte menu.  

First was the anchovy marinated broccoli (¥324).  It was a cold appetizer, but the broccoli had been steamed to the point where it was soft yet still retained a nice bite.  The sun-dried tomatoes were soft and on the sweet side which went well in this dish.  The marinade was nicely done, not too salty with the anchovy only slightly infusing it's flavor.  

The gratin was a mashed potato and Kumamoto bacon (¥540).  The bacon was thickly sliced and had a good ratio of fat to meat.  It was not as salty as regular bacon so the meaty and smokey flavours came through.  I enjoyed the half cooked egg that acted like a dip for the baguette crisps.  Again, the sodium level was well controlled.  There was a little bit of heat as well, probably ichimi.

A few days ago I was watching TV and came across a piece on how to make a good pizza crust.  Apparently the owner of this restaurant learned his trade in Naples, and is the only non-Italian to win some sort of big pizza making contest!  No wonder this restaurant is so good!