“Food is culture. Food is an identity, a footprint of who you are.” Lidia Bastianich of Felidia’s

Valter of Valter’s Osteria

Whenever we visited New York City in our earlier traveling days, Felidia’s—on 243 E. 58th Street NY—was always our first stop for Italian.  It was like walking into Lidia’s home and being part of her family. We knew we could count on enjoying a night of consistently delicious Italian food.

Lidia’s famous restaurant certainly built her reputation as a celebrity chef over the years. But more than that, her belief that “Food is culture. Food is an identity, a foot print of who you are,” left a deep impression in the New York cultural hub of Italian cuisine.  The taste, the presentation, the aroma, the language—all spoke of ancestry and cultural identity. For P&R, it is this philosophy of authenticity that makes her quote above perfect for this blog’s approach. 

At about the same time Lidia opened the flagship restaurant, Felidia’s, a soon-to-be restauranteur stepped into the world of Italian cuisine at the well-known Castellano’s Italian restaurant in New York City. This moment provided the pathway to restauranteurship for a talented culinary artist, Valter Nassi.  In contrast to Lidia’s fame, he was only mid-career in this “most important period of [his] culinary future.” As he explained. “All paths crossed for me at Castellano’s.  The famous crowd mixed with the locals who mixed with travelers who conversed with magnates.  The restaurant specialized in connections” and it was there that Valter expanded his personalized Tuscan style of cooking and also found his future.

The “future” appeared in the form of an entrepreneur from Salt Lake City who stopped by Castellano’s to talk to Valter about water and ended up hiring him as the chef of a new restaurant, Il Sansavino, in Salt Lake City.  Valter’s signature moment happened two decades later when he opened his Tuscan Italian masterpiece, Valter’s Osteria.

Valter not only introduced his Tuscan specialties to Salt lake City but also invited guests to enjoy the culinary inheritance from his mother and father with dishes that have become part of his cultural identity— personalized Tuscan cuisine as he liked to call it.

Valter’s Osteria has become a social hub for international travelers, sports figures, celebrities, and local Utahns. Valter liked guests to think of the restaurant as a home away from home. He loved bringing each guest into his “home” with front-door hospitality. His bigger-than-life personality left one unique impression in the culinary landscape of Salt Lake.

Keep an eye on this blog for the rest of his story.