Salve Osteria to open in the former Café Natasha on South Grand

The “harvest-centric” restaurant will feature foods from Italy, Spain, and the Mediterranean.

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When the owners of storied Café Natasha (3200 S. Grand) announced that the beloved, decades-old restaurant would be closing at the end of April, the silver lining was that a new restaurant would soon take its place, partly operated by members of the same founding family.

On May 27, Salve Osteria will open in the space, with reservations being accepted soon. The “harvest-centric restaurant" will draw inspiration from Italy, Spain, and the Mediterranean, according to a release. Here’s what diners can expect.

The Players

The restaurant will be operated by Natasha Bahrami (of Café Natasha and The Gin Room fame), Michael Fricker (a chef and owner of Grand Spirits Bottle Company), and executive chef Matt Wynn (whose local resume includes several Niche Food Group restaurants—Niche, Sardella, Brasserie, Taste Bar—plus Basso and Peno, as well as two New York City restaurants, Hearth and the former Craft Bar, a Tom Colicchio restaurant).

Hamishe Bahrami, the now semi-retired matriarch of Café Natasha, will assume a peripheral role. “My mom gets to play host, confidant, baby kisser, and handle the finances,” Natsaha says. “After 40 years, she’s retiring from the kitchen.”  

“When we were deciding how to proceed [with Café Natasha] after Hamishe’s retirement,” Fricker adds, “we realized we would have to ask a chef to recreate day in and day out the exact same food that Hamishe had been cooking. We knew that was neither practical nor fair, so we decided to close Natasha and do something else in the space.”

The Concept

Similar to Café Natasha, Salve will embrace the culture of dining. “We want to continue to nurture the social aspect of dining,” Natasha says, “to slow down the pace and have people share multiple courses of food, as opposed to rushing through an appetizer and entrée, then paying the bill and leaving.”

With price points at $14–$19 for small plates, $16–$22 for pastas, and most entrées under $30, the intent is for Salve to bridge the gap between date-night and every-night dining. “Our food can be priced less since its likely we’ll sell a decent amount of alcohol,” Fricker notes.

Regarding the name, Salve (Latin for “be well”) is used for hello and goodbye, similar to ciao but more formal, Fricker explains. “Salve still means be well but is also used to welcome new guests, which is how we intend to use it, like if a friend of a friend comes to visit.

“The word 'Osteria' connotes wine and simple foods,” he continues. “But the osteria vibe is more vibrant. An osteria has become a place where people meet and share, in several senses of the word.”

The hours of operation will be limited—Thursday through Sunday nights—as they were the past several years at Café Natsaha. "COVID taught all of us—especially industry people—to reevaluate our workplace and our lives, that there can be a work-life balance," Natasha preiously told SLM. 

The Fare

Salve's menu will be farm-to-table and seasonally driven. Natasha couldn’t be more complimentary of Wynn. “With Matt, I’m experiencing tastes and textures I’ve never experienced," she says, citing his take on a Caesar salad (with grilled and chopped brined cabbage in place of romaine, dressed with a bagna cauda made with miso in place of anchovies, with cheese, herbs, breadcrumbs, and a drizzle of chili oil on top). “It was so good, I wasn't sure what I was eating, but it was incredible. Matt has a gift, a touch. My mom’s touch was the basis of Café Natasha; I feel Matt will touch Salve the same way.”

Other items on Wynn’s menu include baby carrots, soft poached in bacon fat instead of butter, tossed with pickled shallots and topped with cilantro and bits of bacon. One secret is the blue cheese crema, “where the fat mixes with the cheese to create the dressing.” There’s a roasted half chicken with harissa and toasted fregula sarda (a pearl pasta similar to a heartier couscous) and beef and ricotta meatballs with spicy Pomodoro and focaccia (“where the protein will change with the seasons,” Wynn says, “so maybe beef and pork—or a combination—in the winter months, and chicken and turkey in the spring and summer months").

Asked about the general theme of the menu, Wynn considers the terms “vegetable-forward” or “vegetable-focused,” which to him means that the dish revolves around and is dependent on a seasonal vegetable, which is not necessarily at the center of the plate—what Wynn calls “a strategic rather than an aesthetic use.” Natasha’s explanation of “comfort food classics that might as well come with a hug” is far more relatable. The official moniker is "harvest-focused."

The Drinks

Nearly a decade ago, when Café Natasha was a 30-year-old restaurant and her parents were to ready to retire, Natasha suggested reinventing the bar area, focusing on gin, a spirit on the cusp of a resurgence. The result was The Gin Room, worldwide speaking engagements for Bahrami as an ambassador for the spirit, and an eventual induction into the Gin Hall of Fame, the only American to receive the honor.

The Gin Room will remain—along with the gin cocktail–focused patio bar—“and evolve to embrace the food," Natasha says. Its cocktail menu (four negronis, four spritzes, six cocktails, and eight martinis) will continue but an element of European-style drinking habits will be added in the form of an amaro cart, availing customers to “a whole other course, be it first or last,” Natasha says. Designed to “wind your palate up or wind you down,” the offerings include apertivos (such as Aperol, Campari, and Pernod), digestivos (such as Amaro, Grappa, and Sambuca), as well as the possibility of post-prandial vintage ports and sherries.

“Words on menus can be wildly intimidating, especially if you’re not familiar with the subject,” Fricker explains, “so Natasha and I have always emphasized employee and customer education. The amaro cart is a continuation of that. What you need to know will roll right by your table. It will demystify what apertitivos and digestivos are and do. Getting people to try something new even once creates a new experience and a new memory, which is part of what dining should be about.

“In Italy, people often start the evening with appertivo hour: spritzes, Prosecco, apertivos, and small bites that prepare your palate for dinner,” Fricker continues. "We’re taking that same kind of ideology and approach at Salve.”

The Atmosphere

Physically, the Gin Room will remain as is, but the dining room will receive “new everything,” according to Fricker, “flooring, lighting, paint, wood accents, and vintage spirits posters to create a warm, welcoming osteria feel.”

The walls will be painted two shades of green: a darker olive-tone shade below, Fricker explains, and a lighter “rolling hills of Italy” green on top.  

No changes are planned for the semi-secluded outdoor patio. “The bar will still be called the Garden Bar, focused on fresh fruits and herbs as before,” Fricker says, “but keeping with the theme, it will become more amaro- and spritz-focused.”

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