Sal De Riso: Still Italy’s Most Famous Pastry Chef

I first interviewed you in September 2010 at your bakery in Tramonti during the cultural festival “Scala Meets New York”. It’s still organized every September in the nearby town of Scala by native-son Padre Enzo Fortunato, a prolific author and the Press Director for the Franciscan Order in Assisi. Instead today, eleven years later, I’m at your bistro in your hometown of Minori, also on the Amalfi Coast, to cover another cultural festival, GustaMinori, which you helped to start 25 years ago. Who were the other movers and shakers behind GustaMinori?
Our native-son journalist, writer and poet Alfonso Bottone; the producer of ice cream, limoncello and babà Carlo Mansi; Antonio Di Bianco, now deceased, who owned “Giardiniello”, still the best restaurant in Minori; pastry chef Gabriele Gambardella; Pantaleone D’Auria, now deceased, who owned the still excellent restaurant “La Botte; and Fortunato Apicella, now deceased, who owned “Tony’s“, the bar located where my bistro, where we are sitting, is now. The seven of us ran it for more than ten years. It was like a neighborhood bazaar of local food products and lasted three days. Along its route we offered free samples of our products including fresh pasta: our fusilli and ndunderi (local gnocchi), accompanied by musicians playing popular Neapolitan songs. Our visitors were mainly local, around 4,000 people annually, who’d paid a small entrance fee. Then Antonio Porpora and Andrea Reale, our very popular mayor now in his fourth and thus last term (he cannot be re-elected), took over and capably added cultural events: tours of local monuments, readings, art exhibits, music, and theater. It’s now administered by the GustaMinori Corporation, headed by Porpora, and counts many political and touristic sponsors. At first it took place in June, not August. It was a promotional event for our new local products. Today it lasts nearly two weeks and there are too many outsiders selling their non-local products along our Lungomare. Gustaminori should promote only our typical, locally made products. Otherwise it shouldn’t be called Gustaminori.

This is a thorn in your side?
Yes, during Gustaminori bars here should not sell products made elsewhere. The same goes for restaurants. They should serve only products from here. There are some bars in Minori on Gustaminori’s program that sell “delizia al limone”, that I’ve copyrighted, but instead of selling mine, they sell an industrial version from elsewhere.

Eleven years ago you told Epicurean-Traveler.com’s readers about your family background, your education, your early career in hotel kitchens on the Amalfi Coast and in northern Italian pastry shops, and the start of your own business here and in Rome, where you also have a store at Via Santa Costanza 29-31. Since then you’ve become a television celebrity and today distribute your products all over Europe, in Hong Kong, Australia and Canada, and recently in New York. Who is your distributor there? Since I am a native New Yorker, where can I enjoy your buy or eat your products there?
Domenico and Antonio Magliulo, the owners of “Buon’Italia” are our New York distributors. They sell my products at the Chelsea Market, which the Magliulos own, and at their clients, the restaurants “Sandro’s” and “San Matteo” on Manhattan’s Upper Eastside and “Celeste” on the Upper Westside as well as “Il Pizzaiolo” in Pittsburgh. The Magliulos tell me that within the next month or so they will be adding others. They’d told me that during the pandemic they’d had to stop importing my products due to the uncertainty in the hospitality industry.

Besides New York, Hong Kong, Australia and Canada where do you sell your sweets?
My business has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade. In Canada we distribute in Ontario, above all in Toronto and in Quebec. Outside Italy in Europe we have customers in Germany, France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands. We still work everywhere through distributors, who sell our products to restaurants and gourmet shops. Besides here, and Rome, as of last year I have a shop in the Galleria in Milan.

What are your most recent sweets?”

Torta Panarea” (with pistachios from Bronte in Sicily), “Principe Siciliano” (babà with pistachios), “Il Sentiero delle Formichelle” dedicated to the women who carried the lemons from the groves above Minori down the steep hills to town (Coffee and lemon of course) and most recently, “Caffè Fondente” (coffee and chocolate). All these sweets are sold in cake-form or in single portions.

Will your children follow in your footsteps?
My daughter Anastasia is 20 years old. She studied classical ballet for six years at La Scala in Milan and in Rome. She is now enrolled in a gastronomy and hospitality university degree course in Agerola, not far from here. In the summer she helps out.
My son Antonio is 15 and goes to a scientific high school. He loves to cook the way I did.

Are your “Delizia al limone” and your pear and ricotta cake still your best sellers?
Yes, but my newer cakes “Cinque Sensi”(chocolate and hazelnuts) and “Panarea” are in third and fourth place in sales.

How many people work for you?
Here in Minori forty-three and in Tramonti sixty-five. Forty-five of us work there in production; the other twenty are our office workers, our accountants, PR, packagers, and truck drivers. Here in Minori we make about ten sweets; all the others come from Tramonti.

Of your sweets which is your personal favorite?
My panettone Milanese as well as my classics: “Delizia al limone” with its icing of white chocolate and limoncello, and my pear and ricotta cake. I’ve won many contests in Milan competing against Milanese pastry chefs for my panettone Milanese. I make it in Tramonti not in Milan.

Why do you call it Milanese if you make it here?
Because the first recipe for panettone was born in Milan. The authentic panettone Milanese is made with flour leavened with mother yeast, butter, eggs, Australian raisins, almonds from Bari or Avola in Sicily, candied orange peel and candied lime peel from Calabria. We have to make it according to the recipe in Ministerial Decree of July 22, 2005, which clearly states the amounts of each ingredient..

Tell me about the Accademia del Lievito Madre?
In September of last year I was one of its founders. We needed this Academy of Mother Yeast to promote the Panettone Milanese and this April I was voted the President of the Academy of Italy’s Pastry Chefs. At this moment the Academy of Mother Yeast has 44 members. Thirty came yesterday from Salerno by boat and offered everyone samples of their panettoni. The Academy has its headquarters in UNESCO’s headquarters at Parma. Last year we held a “Panettone Night” there. Last night we held “Panettone Night by the Sea”. My dream is to hold another “Panettone in the Mountains”, possibly in the Dolomites.

Your website, www.salderiso.it , has a shop on-line; except for the torte da forno that you send DHL only in Italy because they are perishable, what can Americans purchase?
My other sweets, several liqueurs, perfumes, and most recently bikinis and scarfs with a lemon theme because lemons are Minori’s most important product.

You continue to receive numerous awards and international honors; which has given you the greatest satisfaction?
Since we met in 2011, I became known all over Italy because I’m a regular guest on the television program hosted by Antonella Clerici, “La Prova del Cuoco”, so non-locals started to come to Minori to sample my creations. In 2019 I was voted “Il Re del Panettone” (“King of Panettone”) and “Best Italian Pastry Chef of the Year” and last year I starred on Sky TV Uno on a special program about Easter sweets. Nevertheless the highlights of my career were giving St. John Paul II my Jubilee cake “Oro Puro” (“Pure Gold”) made with chocolate and mandarin and now meeting Pope Francis. Last year in St. Peter’s Square I gave him a panettone I’d made for his birthday on December 17th.

Have you written more books?

Yes, Dolci facili, facili published in 2013 again by Rizzoli, Siamo Tutti Pasticcioni: In Cucina con la Mamma for children, published by Italian Gourmet in 2013, and Sal de Riso, il Re delle Torte (2017), published by RAI TV’s publishing house ERI, and another, “Profumo di limone” published in 2018 by Italian Gourmet for professional pastry chefs. It’s very technical. Unfortunately, they are only available in Italian.
In 2022 hopefully I’ll publish another book which will also include pizza and savory pies in collaboration with the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Do you still collect cookbooks?
Yes.

Is the number of aspiring pastry chefs growing?
Yes, in the past few years I keep receiving more and more requests from young people wanting to do internships with me because they’ve seen me on TV or watch other cooking programs. Others come to me recommended by hotel management schools.

What advice would you give to an aspiring pastry chef?
To study and build up a solid theoretical knowledge before going on to put it to use in different practical experiences. A young pastry chef has to learn hands-on, through practical experience in a pastry lab or kitchen. It’s also fundamental to speak fluent English.

Where should they study?
In Italy for certain at ALMA near Parma founded by the now deceased Milanese Chef Gualtiero Marchesi, who put authentic Italian cuisine on the world map before founding ALMA, or at IN CIBUM in Salerno, another exceptional school, the best in southern Italy. At both the courses are often in English and open to non-Italians too.

Other pastry chefs that you admire besides your mentor Iginio Massari and Leonardo di Carlo and Luigi Biasetto that you mentioned in 2010?
I should have mentioned Ernst Knam too. The last three are all more or less my age. I should also mention Don Alfonso Iaccarino and his wife Livia as my culinary mentors. They’ve always been a reference point for me, a point of aspired arrival. Don Alfonso is the most extraordinary example to follow that we have here in southern Italy, not only as a chef, but also as a person. He’s like a father to me. That’s why last night I awarded him the deserved recognition “Stelle d’Italia.”

Your next projects?
To turn Minori into another Porto Cervo.  I would like to promote the Amalfi Coast and Minori only through our local traditions and products. I see too much superficiality. We have an serious parking problem. We need to build an underground garage for about 400 cars. Minori must become a shopping center for “Made in Italy”: our already famous luxury goods and local artisanry and foods.
Another is to create sweets appropriate for diabetics. I’m working on this with a professor at the University of Pisa.