310 NORTH WRIGHT BROTHERS DRIVE
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84116
(801) 428-1820
CRISTIANO CREMINELLI, OWNER/MAKER
Cristiano Creminelli talks about salami like a mother talks about her child. Creating salami of this caliber requires parent-like attention with a long, careful commitment to moving it from infancy to maturity. Fine meats and cheeses are certainly all the rage in Utah, thanks to the likes of Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli and Liberty Heights Fresh’s eye-opening selections and customer service, but don’t accuse Cristiano of chasing the latest trend. He’s a fourteenth-generation maker of fine meats from northern Italy who found Utah in a pursuit comparable to an uncompromising story of love.
Where some companies might use terms like “handcrafted” or “artisanal,” Creminelli Fine Meats wrote the book on it. Cristiano is known to take multiple trips a day to his warehouse to simply smell and feel every piece of salami aging in a maze of rooms. From beginning to end, Cristiano’s approach to salami displays respect for a craft and a philosophy long since forgotten in a world generally more concerned with speed over quality and quantity over virtue.
When Cristiano arrived in Salt Lake City in 2006, he started production in the basement of Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli, where he obsessed over salami and quickly outgrew the basement in stature, production, and offerings. He stayed in the realm of fine meats, but took his skill and meticulous attention to detail and produced a series of world-class fine deli meats—Mortadella (emulsified blend of pork and spices) and Prosciutto Cotto (a flakier, spicier, more aromatic version of American ham), to name a couple.
Cristiano’s descent on Utah runs parallel with the time when Utahans began to see local producers as agents of change. Creminelli led locals to love salami. And if salami can be this good, what else? Cheese? Coffee? Wine? Though the local producers may not use Cristiano’s name as the sole inspiration of their business, many would note that he paved the way and proved the concept that good business is more than just cheap ingredients, higher margins, and faster production. Good business is about a damn good product.
(SERVES 4)
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed (follow thawing instructions on package)
9–10 slices salami milano (sliced about the width of a dime)
9–10 slices provolone cheese
¼ cup milk
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Spread pastry on a lightly floured flat surface. Cover pastry with milano slices, then place provolone slices on top of salami. Roll up pastry dough, jelly-roll style, pinching the ends to make sure that the cheese and salami do not slip out. When finished rolling, seal the end of the dough against itself.
Using a knife, cut the roll into slices approximately 1 inch wide. Place slices face up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Be sure slices are far enough apart that the puff pastry has room to puff out while baking. Brush tops of slices with milk.
Bake for 15–20 minutes, until the cheese on top is browned and slightly crispy. Note that smaller slices will bake faster than larger slices and may need to be removed from the oven earlier.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. Serve warm.
