Chef Matthew Safranek launches SALSALLUMINATTI
Thanks to great-great-great grandma, 350 Main’s Chef Matthew Safranek is spicing up the condiment scene with a new line of locally produced sauces. His Park City, Utah-based Salsalluminatti brand is slated to launch this winter, featuring Grandma Fitch’s cocktail sauce, a savory blend of veggies and spices that delicately accompanies crustaceans, fish and even steak.
“Hey, it’s horseradish, vegetables, and vinegar, why wouldn’t it go with a steak?” says Safranek. But, he admits, that it is with seafood—lobster, shrimp, crab, grouper, halibut, salmon—that the versatile sauce really shines.
For Safranek, the scent of Grammy’s sauce is a delicious reminder of his childhood. Every summer, his family cooked up a batch in order to can it for the winter months. As Safranek progressed through his career and worked around the continent and globe, he carried an image of that hand-written recipe with him. But it wasn’t until he was working at a restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard that his old family recipe went public. Safranek whipped up a batch (adding his own fl avors to the original recipe), which quickly made its way to plates at the renowned Taste of Martha’s Vineyard.
After Grandma Fitch’s seaside success, Safranek introduced the scrumptious, “pleasantly acidic, and not overly sweet” sauce to Utah, as the starring condiment in 350 Main’s Lobster Cocktail. Th e popularity of the dish, particularly the growing demand for Grandma Fitch’s sauce, ignited an entrepreneurial spark in the executive chef.
And, so Salsalluminatti became a labor of love for Safranek. He set to work crafting the perfect blends for his sauces, starting with Grandma Fitch’s. He also enlisted the help of experts, such as food scientists and manufacturers, delving into every aspect of his new endeavor. In the throes of entrepreneurship, Safranek has met the sizzling and blander demands of his side gig, from creating a heat-stable horseradish flavor to developing the just-right labels, bar codes and marketing plans.
