60 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {food coloring} ingredients and exquisite plating might merit the label “fine dining,” Sal isn’t a fan of the phrase. “It’s like me saying I have the best food in the world,” he grimaces. “We make good food. And it isn’t uppity.” The former executive chef of Left Bank Brasserie adds, “I’m not trying to make a fake mushroom and it tastes like cake. That’s not the idea.” Sal first learned that elevated dining could be fresh and innovative during his time at Town and Country’s Mayfield Bakery and Café (owned by the same group behind Spruce in San Francisco and The Village Pub in Woodside). He fondly recalls brainstorming sessions around the table, outlining new menu items with the team. “It would look like chicken scratch,” he chuckles. But “we’d sit across from each other and bounce ideas off each other … It was a dialogue that we kept going. It opened up my creativity again.” He’s brought this spirit to his Menlo Tavern team. “It doesn’t have to be this strict brigade with somebody yelling at you,” Sal notes of commercial kitchens. “I never wanted to push that on my guys because you don’t work well. It’s another blissful evening at Menlo Tavern, the sophisticated, “new American” restaurant tucked within Menlo Park’s timeless Stanford Park Hotel. Over glasses of wine, diners relax into conversations surrounded by old photographs and leather-bound books, while a fireplace brings a glow to the low-lit room. Such serenity makes it easy to forget that behind every candlelit dinner, a bustling kitchen staff is making the magic happen. “Cook with your ears and your eyes,” Louis Salvatore (Chef Sal) instructs his team over the hiss of hot skillets and the brisk drumming of knives. “Live in your food—listen, smell and hear.” When Sal joins me in the dining room later, he expands on this sensory approach. “Your food’s almost a small world,” he says. “It’s a hyper-focus on what you’re doing because the food will tell you what is going on.” Let the sizzle of the steak guide you to that perfect sear. Though Menlo Tavern’s elevated
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