Salts deli has been present on the Leeds food scene since the first store opened on Swinegate in May 2005. The business now boasts a second take away shop in the Light and an out of town prep kitchen. They are going from strength to strength, at first as a continental deli concept that morphed in to a quality lunch take away. They are also known for their great catering and last year won the Yorkshire Evening Post Oliver awards best takeaway category.
I had a look behind the scenes and spoke to the man behind it all Bruce Salt.
So who are you and how did you get into this?
I was working as a charted accountant for KPMG dealing with corporate tax. The business happened by accident to be honest, people got sick of me moaning. I, like a lot of people had a passion for good food and thought Leeds was needing a deli. I had talked about it for a while and I was frustrated with what I was doing, so I just followed that dream.
It hasn’t worked out in the same way I anticipated. The original idea was to be more of a deli but then the lunch side proved extremely popular. We adapted quickly to fulfil that requirement, but the idea of fast, good food has not changed.
Why the Spanish them then?
I love Spanish food, in my opinion it’s among the best food in the world, I have visited Madrid and other areas of Spain, and always had superb food.
Everywhere in France, Italy, Spain there is an amazing food buying experience. We are attempting to replicate that to a degree.
My thought was to get something together that is unique with products that cannot be found in the supermarkets. The feel of the shop is quite masculine with the dark wood and bull logo as opposed to the the country tea room idea that you see in a lot of places.
You won the Best take away category of last years Yorkshire Evening Post Oliver awards. Tell us about that…
I can say I never get tired of getting compliments. We had to nominate ourselves like all of the businesses involved, but then we were visited secret shopper style.
The idea behind salts is food of the highest quality for lunch. Not many other people in Leeds aspire to this. We try to make most things, use the best suppliers, and we have a relaxed informal attitude in serving people. The shop is a nice environment to walk in to. Its a homely, community type business.
Maybe we don’t shout about this enough but we only use free range Yorkshire chicken and pork in our sandwiches. We get our veg whenever possible from a nursery in Pudsey, and free range eggs from Wakefield. All of the savoury things are made by us and a lot of the sweet things too, we source just a few cakes from local bakers #brownies. Our recipes come from all sorts of sources, some are adapted form existing ideas and recipies from staff or some we have found in books and changed to suit what we want.
We let the food speak for itself, I am proud of what we do and we have a good team. We try to strike a blanace between quality and price.
Anything else you want to tell us about?
Look out for us at farmers markets, and remember we do great business catering. Also at Christmas we will be doing hampers and hopefully be a one stop shop for all your quality Christmas food.
You can find Salts Deli on Swinegate, in the Light shopping centre, and at farmers markets around the city. www.saltsdeli.co.uk