Holy cannoli!
In his storied career in the kitchen, chef Salvo Lo Castro has been a star around the world and at the Vatican, plating pasta for popes, world leaders and movie stars alike.
These days, he’s traded a life of crosses in Rome for the crosswalks of New York City.
“The secret is I prepare everything with my heart, OK?” Lo Castro told The Post of an acclaimed career that has seen him reach the heights of culinary fame.
“The restaurant is my home, and the people who dine with me aren’t clients — they’re guests who come to my home,” Lo Castro said of his delicious philosophy, alluding to his restaurant’s eponymous moniker.
While Lo Castro has been behind an eponymous chain of busy espresso bars that dot Manhattan since 2022, his sleek, new Soho restaurant, Casasalvo — which opened in July on Spring Street — marks the first time the public at large can feast on his most famous dishes, all with a spiritual pedigree.
For 10 years, he cooked at the Vatican, cultivating special relationships with both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, serving his mother’s meatballs and his namesake fettuccine Casasalvo, both of which are now available to the masses.
“Every pope is a normal person,” Lo Castro said of his sacred tenure. “Though while John Paul was very charismatic, for me the best was Benedict,” he said of the leader, who served as pope from 2005 to 2013.
“He was a very incredible man,” said Lo Castro, who worked for the Pontifex, born Joseph Ratzinger, for six years.
“His eyes were magnetic, and his voice to me was God in the world.”
Celebs, politicians don’t fluster him: ‘Just concentrate on the food’
Lo Castro has also cooked for everyone from Muammar Gaddafi and the Saudi royal family to Tom Cruise and Robert De Niro.
“For important events, if I’m ever nervous to cook, I prepare everything badly,” Lo Castro confessed.
“I prepare everything fantastically when I’m calm and zen. When I arrive in the kitchen, I don’t use the telephone; I only speak with the fish, with the beef, with the lamb. It’s very important you just concentrate on the food.”
Not that his A-list connections phase him: For a dinner next month that he’s prepping for Rolex, expected guests include Leonardo DiCaprio and Roger Federer.
“Normally, for other people, it is not normal, but for me, it doesn’t matter if I’m cooking for a pope, president or ordinary person,” Lo Castro said. “Every man I cook for is a king, and every woman I cook for is a queen.”
While popes and cardinals regularly devoured his pastas and cannolis, he said he had the least amount of menu leeway during the church’s holiest holidays.
“Every religious period for the Catholic Church, like Christmas, is very strict when it comes to what food to serve,” he said. “On Easter, for example, I’d prepare lamb and it’s all very traditional.”
The chef also served up his own inventive dishes.
His aforementioned fettuccine sauce is made through an hourslong process where he slow cooks beef, tomatoes and vegetables (including carrots and celery) separately, before combining them alongside a knob of fine, fresh Italian butter and a hunk of special, 48-month-aged Parmesan cheese.
Aside from his divine clients, Lo Castro has also prepared feasts for the world stage’s other major figures.
‘Every man I cook for is a king, and every woman I cook for is a queen.’
For example, he was in the kitchen in 2008 during a summit on Sardinia between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
“When it came to security before the dinner, there were an incredible amount of restrictions,” he said. “But after you serve the meal, they come into the kitchen to compliment you, and it turns into a very kind situation.”
‘I’m cooking for the world’
Born in the blue-collar Sicilian city of Catania, Lo Castro grew up in Linguaglossa, north of the city atop Mount Etna.
From the beginning, a culinary life was in his blood.
His grandfather, Nino, sold hazelnuts, even earning the regional nutty moniker “King of Hazelnuts.” Orazio, his grandfather on the other side, who ran a local rotisserie, was also a mentor in the kitchen.
He began cooking at 12 when he befriended the chef at a local restaurant, Gatto Blue.
“It was very small, but I’d stay all day in the kitchen.”
After attending chef school, he got his start in the luxury resorts of the Italian island, including Taormina’s swank San Domenico Palace, the setting for the second season of “The White Lotus” and the recent Honeymoon spot for Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.
“My biggest satisfaction is that I came from a small town, and now I’m cooking for the world,” said Lo Castro, who has also lived and cooked in Milan and Florence, as well as Montpellier, France, and Brazil.
“But at the same time, I’m still a very normal man,” he said.
Long days mark his culinary quests
He doesn’t rest on his laurels, either, despite his stacked resume.
Waking up at 5 a.m., the passionate chef starts his exhaustive 18-hour workday zipping around Manhattan on his Vespa, checking in on each of his three espresso bars in Midtown, the Upper East Side and Upper West Side.
The latter, on Amsterdam Avenue, serves 1,500 customers per day; according to his calculations, they gulped down 150,000 cups of espresso and 225,000 rich cappuccinos the past year alone.
His caffeinated fans go crazy for libations like his pistachio cream cappuccino, plus sweets like fresh-baked Italian donuts known as bombolonis.
By noon, he heads downtown to his restaurant, where he attends to the numerous ingredients made in-house, like three different breads, including focaccia al pomodoro, a soft, round Sicilian loaf dotted with red roasted tomatoes.
The eatery’s creamy mozzarella, light and airy pastas, and flavorful desserts like apple pie — an homage to his new home — are all made in-house with meticulous attention to detail.
“I don’t buy average ingredients; I want to control the quality,” he told The Post, sourcing beef from both Tuscany and Montana, lamb from Colorado, and fish from the Mediterranean.
“I prepare the pasta myself, and if I don’t have good flour and good eggs, the pasta won’t be good. Everything you use is very important.”
A baller for meatballs
Dinner is an experience on its own, soundtracked by Andrea Bocelli, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.
Olive oil for dipping is sprinkled with fresh leaves of oregano, which dutiful waiters scissor-snip tableside from a planter.
Meanwhile, fresh Dover sole is deboned tableside.
Out of all of the dishes on his menu, he’s especially passionate about his meatballs; the recipe comes from his Sicilian childhood.
“When I go back home and stay for a week, I eat the meatballs of my mom every day: breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Lo Castro said.
He said he’s honored to bring them to New York, which he was enchanted by in movies before making his way to America.
“New York is the capital of the world,” he said. “It makes me want to work every day seriously for my guests, company and city.”
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