The antipasti of melon, Prosciutto di Parma and mixed greens is a great way to start the evening at Salute. (Rebecca Koenig, photos.)

SALUTE RISTORANTE Location: : 613 Providence Road Phone: 704-342-9767 Price range: Dinner entrées, $18-$35. Some specials are market priced. Hours: Dinner Monday-Saturday, 6-10:30 p.m.; wine shop Monday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Details: Dress is business casual to formal, extensive all-Italian wine list, no smoking, patio dining, private chef’s table, special tasting menus and onpremise catering available.

After several dinners at Salute, a small Italian restaurant and wine shop next to the Manor Theatre in South Charlotte’s Eastover neighborhood, I knew I liked the food and wine, as well as the style and feel of the place. After meeting owners Andrew and Leyla Arcovio and Chef Eric Ferguson and learning more about their philosophy on food, their hopes for the restaurant and the Arcovios’ background in the food and wine business, I liked Salute all the more.

Homegrown
Both of the Arcovios have Italian roots. Leyla’s father was Spanish but her mother was Italian. Her mother’s family is from the small town that bears their family’s name: Campabonico, in the Italian region of Genoa. Andrew’s parents are both full-blooded Italian, both from Calabria. Leyla and Andrew still have family in Italy – “more than we even know,” joked Andrew.

Arcovio’s entrée into the food business came in 1970 when he opened a large health food store near Harvard in Boston. “I called it Walden Organic Market … after Thoreau. I was an idealist at the time,” he said with a smile. “I suppose I still am.”

The market did quite well, an outlet for Arcovio to share his beliefs in organic farming and the humane treatment of animals raised for food. Eventually Arcovio sold to a larger organic retailer called Bread and Circus. Bread and Circus was later bought out by Whole Foods, the successful chain scheduled to start opening stores in Charlotte in 2006.

Happy Anniversary
Salute began in Charlotte on May 18, 1995, as a wine shop and to-go place for all kinds of prepackaged Italian foods. Located at the intersection of Selwyn and Brandywine, the shop enjoyed much success.

With that success came growing pains and the need for more space. Just over a year ago, a restaurant-sized space next to the Manor Theatre, formerly occupied by a short-lived uneventful venture called Chicken Out, became available.

With an adjacent patio and room downstairs, the Arcovios expanded their notion of Salute to become a full-service restaurant with a wine shop, now housed downstairs. Salute Ristorante opened, coincidentally, on May 18, 2004. The Arcovios just celebrated their 10th year in the food and wine business in Charlotte.

Slow food
After more demolishing, refurbishing and decorating of the bilevel space than Andrew and Leyla ever dreamt they were getting into, they were able to pull themselves away from the restaurant’s accoutrements and concentrate on the menu.

Longtime believers in fresh-grown organic produce, sustainable seafood and healthy animal husbandry, the Arcovios are both members of Slow Food USA and wanted their beliefs to be reflected on the menu.

The slow food movement not only embraces reliance on local farmers and the artisans and chefs who produce, market and prepare healthy homemade foods, but it also serves to celebrate the idea of rediscovering the pleasures of gathering around a table to enjoy fine food, wine and, most important, friends and family.

To that end, the Arcovios and Chef Ferguson buy as much organic product for the restaurant as they can, estimating that 85-95 percent of what they cook and sell in the winter months is organically produced. In the spring and summer, all the produce and hormone- and antibiotic-free meat at the restaurant is organic and none of the seafood is farm raised.

The menu at Salute reflects the flavors of the season. You’ll spot Ferguson at local farmers’ markets buying from regional producers like New Town Farms, New Beginning Farms, New Moon Farms, Nice’s Herbs and Willow Tree Farms.

In fact, Salute has contracted with Rick Walker of Willow Tree Farms to grow 30-40 varietals of organic vegetables specifically for Salute. All seeds for these vegetables come directly from Italy. “When the food is this fresh, you don’t have to add a lot,” explained Chef Ferguson. “The quality of the food speaks for itself.” Andrew agreed. “Eric’s talent in the kitchen is in bringing out the best of an already great product and highlighting the natural flavors, not in covering them up with thick sauces. You’ll never see tall food here, or anything impaled with a knife for a dramatic presentation.”

On the menu
Salute’s seasonal menu features items that often change from week to week. The menu offers a selection of antipasti or appetizers; the crab cakes, lightly fried calamari and the seasonal risotto are current favorites.

Salads or insalate follow appetizers, and the fresh-picked taste of the produce comes through. All of the salads on the spring menu, from the roasted beets, mixed greens and goat cheese to the warm fingerling potatoes, spinach and gorgonzola piccante, are each wonderful in and of themselves.

There is always a soup of the day and a selection of five different pasta dishes. Favorites here include the house-made ravioli – whatever flavor it features – and a popular special called broken lasagna. This lasagna is not made in a big pan and cut into squares. Instead each portion is made to order with paper-thin, melt-inyour- mouth noodles, made in-house. The cooked noodles are layered in a large, shallow bowl with servings of a lamb ragu between the middle layers. The lasagna is finished with a rich, creamy Parmesan béchamel sauce. The combination of flavor and texture is to die for.

Second plates, or Secondi on the menu, are the heartier entrées served at Salute. The New York strip steak and veal scaloppine are both quite good. The grilled wild salmon is a taste sensation, as is the lobster with seared scallops. The pan-seared seasonal fish has yet to disappoint.

If you dine at Salute in the next week or two, the likelihood is great that softshelled crabs will be on the menu. You simply must place an order.

It’s a short season before the molting soft-shells begin to develop their hard blue or black exteriors. Ferguson takes advantage of the naturally sweet taste of the delicate crab by breading them ever so lightly, then cooking them in a quick pan fry finished with a hint of lemon and caper in his traditional piccata sauce – outstanding.

Each meal at Salute starts with a complimentary amusé, a small taste of an individual appetizer. Fresh-baked bread from Charlotte’s Nova’s Bakery is served throughout the meal, sliced and grilled with a mix of aromatic olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.

At the end of the meal there is an offering of several seasonal homemade desserts. Many of the desserts are served with fresh-made gelato. Again, there are no bad choices here – but if you’re asking, the lavender vanilla bean served atop the homemade chocolate mousse cake is a great way to finish.

In wine there is truth
The wine list at Salute is 100 percent Italian, as is the selection in the Salute wine shop located just below the restaurant. The shop offers more than 400 different wines with 250 selections on the restaurant’s wine list at any given time. It’s a lot to choose from, so if you find the selection daunting, don’t be afraid to ask for help in finding something to suit your palate and pocketbook.

At the chef’s table
Although the wine shop closes at 6 p.m., it is available as a location for special wine dinners and private parties. A chef’s table in the shop seats up to 10 guests. You may order a five-course, specially prepared dinner for $75 per person, or a seven-course dinner for $95 per person, both priced without wine.

At Salute you can also enjoy the treat of a specially prepared tasting menu in the dining room. At $65 per person (again without wine), Chef Ferguson will come to speak with the table, discover your likes and dislikes and prepare the five-course tasting menu specifically to suit your palate. To reserve the chef’s table for dinner or to preplan a tasting menu with Chef Ferguson, simply call in advance.

If you are interested in wine dinners and wine tastings at Salute, call or drop by the wine shop and add yourself to the e-mail list. The shop also holds free informal tastings every Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.

Salute’s executive chef Eric Ferguson prepares pounded lamb for an evening special.

Well-known Charlotte restaurant critic, food writer, cooking instructor and connoisseur of food and wine, Heidi Edidin writes "The Charlotte Weekly: Culinary Corner," a restaurant review or food feature that appears weekly. Contact Heidi with questions and restaurant, food or story ideas by email at heidi@thecharlotteweekly.com.

CW photos by Rebecca Koenig.

This article first appeared in "The Charlotte Weekly" on June 10, 2005. "The Charlotte Weekly" is a free, locally owned, independent newspaper that's "About the Community, For the Community," available every Thursday in North and South Charlotte and Uptown.

Copyright 2005 by The Charlotte Weekly and WSOCTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.