La Salute is an Italian restaurant in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Its central location means it’s the perfect place to enjoy the town’s famed blend of Georgian, Jacobean and Tudor architecture, and it’s just a short walk from the Roald Dahl’s Children’s Gallery, which features exhibits showcasing characters from the author’s work. La Salute aims to bring a slice of Naples to this quintessentially English setting, serving a range of both Anglicised and traditional Italian dishes, from what can credibly claim to be the town’s first Italian restaurant.
The menu covers a lot of ground. Old favourites like bruschetta, calamari fritii, and melanzana alla parmigiana feature in the starters line up alongside dishes such as pallotte cacio e ova (deep fried breaded cheeseballs) and funghi ripieni (baked mushrooms filled with mascarpone). There’s also a range of breads, including focaccia and garlic pizza bread.
Pizza is the signature dish from the main course options, as is the case in Naples. All dough is made using a traditional Neopolitan recipe of just blended flour, water, salt, and fresh yeast, before then being proved for 24 hours prior to baking. There’s a huge range of toppings on offer, ranging from a margherita to a pizza carbonara, the pasta sauce used as a pizza base and topped with pancetta and grated pecorino. You’ll also find Napoli pizza (tomatoes, anchovies, olies and capers) and Gallina (potato cream with mozzarella, chicken and crunchy onion and Grana Padano flakes).
As is usually the case in Italian restaurants, pasta appears alongside pizza. Options here are equally as numerous, with big hitters like spaghetti carbonara, spaghetti alla bolognese, penne arrabbiata and lasagne all accounted for. Gnocchi and risotto also feature, as do a range of meat and fish dishes, such as veal alla valdostana and sebass alla vesuviana (black olives and capers in a cherry tomato sauce).