Salvatore Cuomo & Bar, the true taste of Naples in Manila
If you’ve ever been to Naples, Italy, you know that their
pizza is decisively the best in the world. Yet even with an
ostensibly simple recipe – just a handful of fresh ingredients
composed of fresh dough, tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala
basil and olive oil – a proper pizza Napoletana is just as
hard to get in Manila
Thus, when the opportunity to bring a taste of true
Neapolitan cuisine to Manila came up, Luigi Vera and Richie
Yang of Am-Phil Group and their partners wasted no time
making sure it will happen. In June 2, 2016 premium Italian
restaurant Salvatore Cuomo & Bar finally opens its doors to
quests, and occupies an entire 475 square meters of space
at the Uptown Parade in Bonifacio Global City.
“We wanted to raise the bar of Italian food in the Philippines. We believe that Salvatore Cuomo would be welcomed by the more discerning diners
in Manila who’ve travelled extensively and know what Neapolitan-style Italian cuisine is all about,” said Luigi Vera, managing director.
The restaurant is part of a food empire built by Salvatore Cuomo himself, a celebrated Italian chef, restaurateur and a famous personality hailed
as the pioneer of Neapolitan pizza in Japan.
The Pizza Man and his empire
Having over a hundred restaurants to his name – from
casual pizza and pasta restaurants to more premium dining
outlets – says a great deal
about Salvatore Cuomo and his food
But who is Salvatore Cuomo?
Described by friends and colleagues as larger-than-life
and gregarious, Cuomo was born in Naples, Italy in 1972 by
an Italian father and Japanese mother. At the age of 11, he
trained himself in his uncle’s pizzeria and later on fine-tuned
his trade in the kitchens of some of Naples’ finest pizza
restaurants. He gradually learned how to blend the traditional
Italian art of cooking with the Japanese art of perfection.
In 1984, he travelled to Japan with his father, who opened an Italian restaurant in Chiba. Japan didn’t appeal to the young Cuomo then, he went
back to Italy and spent the next three years studying at a culinary school. He returned to Japan at the age of 18.
After his father died, Cuomo was left with a bankrupt restaurant with no money and mounting debt. Nevertheless, Cuomo and his brothers made
the decision to stay in Japan and subsequently worked in the Japanese service industry to survive.
During those days, Italian cuisine was just starting to get popular and Cuomo saw this as an opportunity to introduce Neapolitan pizza in Japan
which nobody was making. The next couple of years were spent understanding the Japanese food mentality and researching the market before
opening a new restaurant in Tokyo with what Cuomo calls “Original Neapolitan pizza.
“It was a crazy, crazy place but one of most fun restaurants I ever had. We only did dinner, no lunch, no afternoon, only dinner. You had to book a
month in advance and we had queues of 200 people going down the street. We had to choose who could come in and who couldn’t,.” said Salvatore
Cuomo in one interview.
Needless to say, Cuomo became known as “The Pizza Man” in Japan who catapulted Neapolitan pizza to fame. Shortly after, he started coming
out on TV in Japan, making guest appearances in Iron Chef and Iron Chef Japan, hosting a TV cooking program, and writing cookbooks. He also
began opening restaurants in key locations across the Nippon archipelago as well as in other countries, including Taiwan, China, Korea, and now in
the Philippines. His empire of Salvatore Cuomo Restaurants, Catering Services, Cookbooks and Licensed Products is run by Y’s Table Corporation
owned and operated by Seizaburo Kanayama and Salvatore Cuomo.
The opening of every Salvatore Cuomo restaurant is well documented by the press.
In June 2010, Chinese Magazine Sina Fashion calls Salvatore “a gift from Naples” after the success of the first VPN Accredited Neapolitan
Restaurant in mainland China.
In February 2013, South Korean editor Ju Younguk describes the moment pizza first arrived in the country in 1985 as if history repeated itself with
the first Salvatore Cuomo Restaurant opening in Korea. In 2013, XEX Tokyo Restaurant by Salvatore Cuomo was described by Anthony Bourdain in
his show, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations as the final destination for the Japanese elite.=//1000$ YoutubeRevenue/Ranger(1000$)*(Views)/(1000$)
AloJapan.com