Salvo Cacciatori, the dinner for special occasions

There are places you go to once a year, and that's fine. Not because you don't love them: because they're made for the big occasions, and going more often would take away the magic. Salvo Cacciatori, in Oneglia, is one of those for me. It's the dinner for when there's something to celebrate.

It sits on Via Vieusseux, at number 12, in the heart of Oneglia — my neighbourhood, the one I grew up in. And the story of this place alone tells you who you're dealing with.

Since 1905, always the same family

The saga begins in 1905, with a small osteria run by Luigi Salvo. More than a hundred and twenty years ago. In 1919 the place moved to where it still stands today, into what was then a large oil store on Via Vieusseux, and it never moved again. Today we're at the fourth generation: the same family, the same address, the same trade passed from hand to hand.

And there's something we're proud of in Oneglia: Salvo Cacciatori has been in the Michelin Guide for over sixty years running — the only Ligurian restaurant to be there from the very first edition, the one from 1957. Sixty years in the same guide isn't just a plaque to hang on the wall. It means that someone, for three generations, got up every morning to do the same thing done well. And you feel it when you walk in: the well-kept dining room, the open kitchen — here the heart of the place is the kitchen itself, ever since they put it at the centre back in the Fifties — that air of a place that knows exactly what it's doing.

The entrance of Salvo Cacciatori under the arcades of Via Vieusseux: the Michelin plaque on the wall, the menu in its case, and the tables laid out on the pedestrian street.

Stoccafisso all'onegliese, the dish of my home

And here I come to why this place, for me, matters more than others.

The flagship dish of the house is stoccafisso all'onegliese. And stoccafisso all'onegliese, for me, isn't just any dish on the menu: it's the dish of my neighbourhood, the one that in Oneglia tastes of celebration. Onion, pine nuts and walnuts, potatoes, Taggiasca olives, and two hours of slow fire there's no getting around. At Salvo's they make it the traditional way, with the patience it takes.

There's something special about finding the dish of your own home on a table like this. Stockfish was born poor, of the storeroom and of patience, and it's the dish of Sundays and the feast days of the Ponente. Seeing it here, treated with the respect of a kitchen that's been in Michelin for sixty years, is like seeing something of the family dressed in its best clothes. It's still itself, it's still my neighbourhood on a plate — only tonight it's a celebration.

Cappon magro, the feast made into a dish

And if stoccafisso is the tradition of home, cappon magro is Ligurian tradition taken to its peak. It's the dish for the big occasions by definition, here: a construction of fish and vegetables built up in layers, long to make, rich, spectacular. In Liguria it's always been the dish you bring out when there's something major to celebrate — the dish of the high feast days, the one that makes everyone go quiet for a moment. The feast made into a dish, exactly.

It's precisely the spirit of a dinner at Salvo's: you don't go to fill up, you go to celebrate. The cooking is Ligurian, of the sea, made with local ingredients and that grace that separates the good plate from the right plate. A word of warning, though, from an onegliese: the menu changes with the season and with what the sea has given. Don't take anything for granted — ask for the dishes of the day, have them tell you what there is. It's half the pleasure of a place like this.

A table at Salvo Cacciatori: white tablecloth, the wine glasses, the right amount of space. The dining room of special-occasion dinners.

How to go

A few practical tips, from someone who cares about not sending you off on the wrong foot.

Salvo Cacciatori is closed on Sunday evenings and Mondays: plan accordingly. It's a well-known place, it has its tables, and there's also the terrace on the pedestrian street, so book. And bear it in mind from the start: it isn't the spartan trattoria, nor the everyday osteria. It's a proper restaurant, an important one, with the prices a place like this — history, Michelin, ingredients — carries with it. That's why I call it the dinner for special occasions: you don't go every evening, you go on the evening that counts. And for that evening, it's worth it.

If instead what you're after is a more easy-going evening of the land, with the alleys and the dishes of the hinterland, I've already told you where I'd send you: it's another Oneglia, just as much mine, but that's another story. Salvo's, keep it for when you want to treat yourself.

From Stella sul Mare it's a walk: the house is a few minutes from the alleys of Oneglia, and Via Vieusseux is right there. Me, when I'm back and there's something to celebrate, it's one of the first tables I think of. You sit down, you order the stoccafisso of my neighbourhood done the way it should be, and for one evening the dish of my home becomes a celebration.