Salvo Caffe

Salvo’s Caffe is full of charm, bedecked in photos from Holywood’s Golden Age, and serves a three course lunch for £6.95. Their menu is a little whacky and wonderful, with all-​day breakfast options, coupled with an eclectic mix of lunchtime dishes. Don’t fancy pasta? How about nachos, or fish n chips, or chicken curry? Their soup was good, their pasta not so great, and their chocolate cake rather marvellous. A lovely wee place.
Overall, we said: «I was delighted with Salvo’s Caffe. The food is quite good and the price is right, but it’s such a characterful spot that those considerations are almost secondary. This is just a great little place to hang out, while Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant and Richard Widmark look on. If you’ve not visited, or you have but not for a while, I’d urge you to pop in and sample its undoubted charms.»

I had lost a glove, it was –10 outside, I was waiting on a prescription from the pharmacist to be ready to ease my yuletide ailments, and I had a splitting headache from low caffeine levels.
Salvo Caffe was the first place I saw so in I popped for a take out coffee. It’s a greasy spoon café, and although it was empty (it was 11am on a Tuesday morning) I saw one of the waiters eating a fry up. It looked particularly greasy. If that floats your boat (probably on a Saturday or Sunday morning) then it looked quite good.
My coffee was only £1. And it was properly ground coffee. The waiter even asked if I wanted «more foamy or more milky?» I think (and this is awful if I get it wrong) they were both Italian, and perhaps I was served by the owner. The coffee was goooood. It really was. And it was only £1.
So if I’m ever in the Tollcross area and in need of a coffee, on the cheap, I’ll pop in here for sure.
I also loved the interior decoration, which was wall-​to-​wall with various cut-​out pictures from magazines, framed pictures etc. of 1950s stars. Marilyon Monroe and the like. It was quite odd, as the outside of the café isn’t glam. It was just a nice touch.
Greasy spoon, yes. But cheap good coffee to warm the soul? That’s worth a few stars.

Salvo Caffe looks nothing from the outside, and to be honest, it is not up to much on the inside either. This café is situated in the Tollcross area of Edinburgh, and so it ought to have a lot of custom from all the commuters, but on the times when I have been here, it has been completely empty.
Salvo Caffe is a pretty standard café, serving all day breakfasts, rolls, tea and coffee, but it doesn’t seem to do this awfully well. I ordered a bacon roll from here several weeks ago, and although it was well priced at about £1.50, the roll itself verged on tasting rank. The bacon was verging on being a tad undercooked and there was a lot of fat on it which I had to keep pulling off — not pleasant.
Salvo Caffe is also a gelateria, and to their credit they have a good selection of tasty ice creams available, but this is their saving grace.
I frequently find the staff quite rude and uninterested in their customers. There are a few tables inside but most people opt to take their food to go. Salvo Caffe (or is meant to be Café???) is pretty greasy greasy spoon that I wouldn’t want to visit again unless if I was desperate.