The Amalfi Coast holds a special place in my heart. I am fascinated by the powerful presence of the sea, its rocky coastline, the variety of its flora and fauna-and by its cuisine! The last time I was there, I was delighted to meet Salvatore De Riso, a member of the Accademia Maestri Pasticceri Italiani and one of the glories of the Italian pastry world, whose insistence on using only the highest-quality ingredients evokes the passion of another era. The range of his creations, each with a characteristic touch of lemon, is truly remarkable.
I could never forget his delizie al limone, or the celebrated ricotta and pear cake, such an exquisite blend of local flavours. Then there is the babà, in its many flavourful guises, the Anastasia cake, the Scazzetta del Vescovo, the Peccato di gola, his creamy chocolates
scented with wild fennel, not to mention the Dolce d’Amalfi, the pastiera, the sfogliatella-in both its puff pastry and shortcrust versions-flavoured with candied fruit, with ricotta, with vanilla... need I go on?
With great affection.

Luigi Veronelli
World-famous oenologist




Intelligence, skill, and a joyous search for perfection are the hallmarks of De Riso’s work. For those like him with the inner conviction of their craft, he stands as a symbol of what is possible if you simply follow your inner voice. Salvatore De Riso needs no convincing to follow his chosen path: the acclaim he has accumulated from his peers, the adoration of his customers have marked it out for him. Spontaneous and gregarious, you can pick him out in an instant in his shop in Minori, flitting from table to table in the summertime to chat with customers, or popping up behind the counter in winter to ensure that the service is perfect. That is the way that Salvatore De Riso is. Despite an ever-longer list of public engagements in Italy and invitations abroad, he is always there with you. Maybe not always in person, but you feel the simplicity and genuineness of his presence in everything he does. It is unmistakable.

Igino Massari
Master Confectionery,
founder member of the Academy of the Italian Master Confectioners




Salvatore De Riso and I are both colleagues and countrymen. With years of study and experience in common, we share a link to the land of our birth. Its colours, its flavours and scents are part of our daily lives.
It is our pride that moves us both to take our culinary traditions abroad, to make the sweet and savoury of our historical memory live on in the mouths of new generations, bringing elegantly and with a lightness of touch the unique bounty of our soil to the tables of others.
In this regard, the rich traditions and precision techniques of the pastry world have found in Salvatore De Riso a great master.

Alfonso Iaccarino
Chef patron “Restaurant Don Alfonso 1890”,
Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi, Sorrento Coast




If ever in my dreams “prohibited" I imagined myself immersed in a tub overflowed with sweetness, it happened after seeing Salvatore De Riso work, kneading, mounting, whip cream chocolate, with an almost scientific technique, with the wise modesty of one who is sure of himself, and with Carthusian patience of the artisans at one time. If I had to define a portrait of Salvatore I would describe him as a strong coast man, wise and tenacious. A “confectioner" in the full sense of the word, you can imagine a fantastic character of a children's fable, as the absolute protagonist of modern symposium on advanced techniques of the art in which it excels.
Salvatore's image is not just that of “his" lemons, “his" nuts, “his" ricotta and everything that a land so fertile and generous offers. But alot of local “God's gifts" did not prevent him from going to look elsewhere as juxtapose, blending and joining scents and flavours of the Amalfi Coast with scents and flavours of distant origins both within and outside national boundaries, but always the best quality. From the research to the fusion of excellent first materials originate his wonderful sweets, and here more than anywhere else the word “sweet" represents in full both the noun as the adjective qualifier. Salvatore's cakes are generous just like himself. Only in “morceau" there is the maximum of what you can expect from a dessert: the suggestive pleasure and poetic visual and tactile enjoyment and pleasure of the palate.
And this principle applies both to the recipes of the great tradition of those that arise from his great imagination and creativity. In fact giving and ingredient to Salvatore is like giving a “la" to a musician. From that note he invents and forges a symphony to dedicate to a fruit, a season, a city, a poem, a film, and why not,
a woman! Against sadness a flower can help but if you turn your sleeves up and follow Salvatore's instructions you will see that his recipes are real and proper formulas of happiness!

S. De Riso, “Dolci del sole”, ed. Rizzoli 2008, p.11

Antonella Clerici
RAI Presenter of “La prova del cuoco”