Pasticceria Rosa Salva – Virtual Tour 360°

At a glance

Type

Pastry shop and café

The trade begins

About 1870, with the cook Andrea Rosa

The brand

The company dates its name to 1879

Recognition

Regione Veneto register of historic places of commerce; national register of historic trademarks, no. 269, since 1 December 2021

This branch

Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Castello 6779

Open

Every day, 08:00–20:00

Overview

There are six Rosa Salva addresses in Venice and Mestre; this one stands on the campo of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, with the Dominican basilica on one side and the Scuola Grande di San Marco on the other, and Verrocchio’s equestrian Colleoni in the middle of it. It is the classic Venetian stop between two monuments.

The dates need care, because the company gives two. Its history page says the story begins «towards 1870» with the cook Andrea Rosa; its logo, on every shop and every page, reads 1879. The national heritage catalogue, in a record compiled by the Soprintendenza for Venice and the lagoon, supports the first: in 1870 the cook Andrea Rosa worked in Venetian palaces and Veneto villas. The 1879 date is attached to the banqueting business and to the moment a Rosa became cook to the royal house.

History

What Andrea Rosa did was simple and, for the time, unusual: he made his kitchen mobile and went to cook in other people’s houses, in the palaces of the city and the villas of the mainland. The family’s own account has him travelling to the Brenta villas at dawn on a barge; that detail comes from the family and is not documented elsewhere, so it is repeated here as their telling rather than as fact.

The second name has a story of its own, and it too is hedged by the institution that records it. According to the heritage catalogue, «Salva» began as a nickname — it seems, the record says, that its bearer had saved someone who had fallen into a canal — and was later registered as a surname alongside the first.

The business is on the Regione Veneto register of historic places of commerce, which lists premises open to the public for at least forty years, and since 1 December 2021 the name has been on the national register of historic trademarks. That registration certifies fifty years and more of continuous use; it does not certify a founding year, which is why the two dates continue to sit side by side.

What you see

A counter of Venetian pastry rather than a dining room: the small cakes, the fritole in carnival season, the coffee taken standing. The room is plain and the queue at the counter is the point.

Outside, the campo is one of the great open spaces of Castello, and the bronze horseman in the middle of it has been there since 1496.

Practical information

• Address: Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Castello 6779, Venezia
• Open: every day, 08:00–20:00
• Telephone: +39 041 5227949
• Other branches: San Marco 950 in Calle Fiubera, the historic seat; San Marco 4805 at Campo San Salvador; Teatro La Fenice; Fondazione Querini Stampalia; and Via Cappuccina 17 in Mestre

Nearby

• Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo — on the same campo
• Scuola Grande di San Marco — on the same campo
• Libreria Acqua Alta — 159 m away
• Antica Osteria Ardenghi — Bar, 125 m away

Sources

• Ministero della Cultura, Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali, record 0500715799 compiled in 2021 by the Soprintendenza per il Comune di Venezia e Laguna (Andrea Rosa in 1870; the origin of the name «Salva»)
• Regione Veneto, Elenco regionale dei luoghi storici del commercio (L.R. 50/2012, art. 11)
• UIBM, national register of historic trademarks of national interest, registration no. 269 of 1 December 2021
• Rosa Salva, official site, for addresses and opening hours