Chef Angelo Baggio has co-owned and cooked in several swish restaurants around town over the last few years, including Alto Palato and Primo et Secondi. Salute, which opened to little fanfare on a restaurant-packed block of Laurier Avenue in late 2008, is the first restaurant Baggio solely owns.

Chef Baggio holds down the kitchen, alongside Chef Spyros Sanidas. The cuisine is French with an Italian flare, or Italian with a French flare, depending on how you look at it. They aim to change the dinner menu about once every one or two months. The lunch menu is simpler and more efficient.

At the time of writing, Salute's dinner menu included items such as salmon tartare, made with a mix of fresh and smoked salmon, oven roasted tomatoes, and a poached quail's egg; beef tataki with roasted yellow and red beets, baby chickory greens, and French shallots mustard dressing; and a homemade foie gras torchon with poached sweet wine raisins and grilled brioche bread. Pan-seared scallops come with cauliflower purée, and sautéed buttered shitake in veal jus; a tart with oven backed roma tomatoes comes with onion jam, goat cheese gratiné and pesto oil; and homemade porcini stuff ravioli's come with natural veal reduction, foie gras au torchon and truffle oil. Pasta options include the Italian flair pennone, with seasoned sausage crisps, heavy cream, goat cheese melt, rapinis, and truffle oil drizzle, as well as a tagliatelle with sautéed shrimps, baby scallops, bokchoy, and coconut-cilantro curry sauce. A paella-style risotto comes with calamari rings, shrimps, mussels, chicken, chorizo, green peas, and zafferano.

From the sea, salmon is grilled and served with lime and marscarpone risotto, asparagus and a parmigiano emulsion, while a lobster lasagna is made with spinach, white asparagus, and a lobster bisque ginger sauce. Duck pink breast is seasoned with smoked salt, braised Napa cabbage, and ginger and honey sauce.