A custom Spanish-built woodfired grill is about to start throwing flames on First Street in Downtown Phoenix. Stefano Fabbri, the restaurateur behind Pomo Pizzeria, Rosso Italian and Luna Gelateria, is opening Salta, an Argentine-inspired steakhouse serving meat, seafood and vegetables cooked over fire, right next door to his original pizzeria.
A Grill Built for Theater, Not Just Steak
According to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, Salta will open this fall at 705 N. First St. in Downtown Phoenix, sharing an entryway, valet and hostess stand with Pomo Pizzeria next door. The report notes that guests will be able to grab drinks at Pomo before dinner at Salta, or vice versa, blurring the line between the two concepts into one extended night out. Fabbri has said the restaurant will not serve fully authentic Argentinian cuisine, but instead lean on Argentine fire-cooking techniques layered with his own Italian sensibility.
The centerpiece is a grill custom made in Spain, according to Fabbri, built to handle meat, seafood and vegetables cooked directly over fire. The same reporting lists a menu built around empanadas, tableside milanesa napolitana, wood-fired provoleta and potato dishes, alongside a central bar serving cocktails and grill-focused small plates. Fabbri has said he wants Salta to draw in a young, lively crowd rather than function purely as a formal steakhouse.
Roots in a Seventy-Year Family Food Business
Fabbri’s path to Downtown Phoenix traces back generations. His family’s food business dates to 1949, when his grandfather opened a bakery in Sant’Agata, in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, according to Frontdoors Media. His parents later opened a pizzeria and gelateria named Luna in 1969 — the same name Fabbri gave his own Phoenix gelateria concept decades later.
Fabbri brought that lineage to Arizona in 2010, opening Pomo Pizzeria Napoletana at the Borgata in Scottsdale as one of the first pizzerias in the state to earn official Neapolitan certification, the Phoenix New Times reported at the time. Pomo still holds its designation from the Naples-based Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, which governs everything from dough fermentation time to the origin of the wheat flour used, per the organization’s standards. Fabbri has said Pomo represents his Italian roots, even as Salta pushes his menu in a new direction.
From Pandemic Losses to a $15 Million Operation
Fabbri’s restaurant group has weathered real financial turbulence to get here. In a June 2023 interview with Italian outlet Corriere Romagna, Fabbri said Pomo Restaurant Group had grown into a $15 million annual enterprise employing 165 people, despite losing $3 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he was forced to close or sell four locations. Salta marks a bet that the recovery can keep scaling upward…