Salvi’s Mozzarella Bar

Salvis is one of Manchester’s most highly-regarded Italian restaurants, and for good reason. The menu features all the classics of the Mediterranean coastline, from pizza to pasta to risotto, with a few surprises along the way.

We begin with a salami and mozzarella sharing board – world famous, as the menu states. Three varieties of milky white cheese: Bufala, smoked Provola and Burrata. The Bufala is as good as mozzarella gets, tangy and stringy, delicious and almost like an edible fabric. The smoked Provola is more divisive – my dining partner loves it, but I find it slightly overpowering, rather like a burnt tennis ball. Not awful by any means, but certainly an acquired taste. The Burafa is superb. Soft and milky, on the verge of reverting back to curds and whey. The accompanying meats and roasted vegetables are excellent too, but this platter is all about the cheeses.

We follow this with the soffietti, an impossibly addictive bowl of pizza dough balls, puffy and hot, sprinkled with cheese, tomatoes and basil. Something so simple shouldn’t be so fantastic. It’s hard to resist grabbing handful after handful of these soft pillowy nibbles, especially when there are so many of them.

A showcase dish you won’t find anywhere else in Manchester

After such hearty starters, we’re almost too full for the mains. But the Salsiccia Napoletana is too perfect, packed with huge bold flavours, thick strips of soft aubergine, diced celery and wonderfully-spiced Italian sausage. It’s a showcase dish you won’t find anywhere else in Manchester.

The seafood risotto is just as spectacular. A big jumbled pile of soft saffron-tinged rice, dotted with thick fresh prawns, sliced squid, clams and mussels. Nothing pre-frozen, nothing over-cooked, everything is prepared with pinpoint attention to detail, using the finest produce available in the city. The only negative is that by this point our bellies are too full to finish the lot.

Salvi’s is one of a kind. It stands apart in the Corn Exchange, hidden underground, far removed from all the chain restaurants and smash-and-grab diners. This unassuming but loveable space is one of Manchester’s true hidden gems with wonderfully-cheery staff who know all too well how good their food is, and are damn proud of it. It’s not just the best Italian restaurant in Manchester, it’s hard to think of a better Italian eatery in the whole of the North.