Darby Doyle is a food, beverage, and outdoor writer who covers the culinary and natural wonders of the American West. She is also in possession of an overflowing pantry primarily devoted to whiskey.
Dosas are a culinary blank canvas of sorts, but they’re anything but boring. Made with fermented rice and lentils, dosas start with a light, crêpe-like batter that’s typically griddled fresh to order until crisp around the edges, rolled with myriad fillings, and deliciously dipable in zippy chutneys, chunky sambhar and sauces ranging from mildly savory to wildly spicy.
“It’s the comfort food of South India, from very traditional to more modern flavors,” said Managing Partner and beloved award-winning SLC restaurateur Lavanya Mahate during a recent food media event at SV Café. Bustling with friends, family and business neighbors, all rubbing elbows with a few food writers and a smattering of local social media influencers, Mahate was celebrating the re-launch (and new name) of this colorful and warm space in West Jordan. The SV Café origin story melds food traditions with community connections begun in 2017, with the restaurant’s founding by Hindu Temple Priest Shri Satish Nenmali Seshadri—currently in Chennali, India running a Gurukul (spiritual school) for underprivileged youth—co-owner Dr. Dinesh Patel, and others devoted to creating a 100% vegetarian community gathering space featuring the best of South India.
As can be expected at a media event like this, the kitchen shared bites of a bit of everything for guests to taste. Dosas were definitely the star of the show: We tried itty-bitty cone-shaped dosa filled with spiced and satisfying potato, buttery and crispy dosa with mixed cheese, and even an of-the-moment dessert dosa with Dubai chocolate, pistachio and kadaif.
Also passed by the gracious staff were traditional uthappam (lentil pancakes) topped with cheese and tomatoes, which I can totally imagine even the pickiest of kiddos scarfing down without a blink. There were vada sambhar (lentil fritters with a saucy rainbow of stews and sauces), and even more desserts from vegetable-based fudges, to soft gulab jumun (milk dumplings in cardamom syrup), to a totally craveable finish of silky rava kesari (semolina pudding with cashews). Notable: Much of the menu is gluten-free and/or vegan, to boot.
Just being in proximity to so many people filled with joy, generosity of spirit, and earnest and honorable intentions gave my self-admittedly jaded heart a little pitter pat. (I swear it wasn’t just being slightly sanctimonious about having a meal that reduced my carbon footprint a bit.) Their goal of building community connection through sharing the basic human pleasure of delicious food is genuinely and generously shared here at SV Café, and it’s a lovely addition to our food scene, full stop.
I’m planning to go back and sample more of the menu soon, and am especially tempted by the “chaat counter” of the menu for indulging in some traditional snack combos. I mean, if Lavanya Mahate says that’s where to start, who am I to contradict?
When You Go…
SV Café 1617 W. 9000 South, West Jordan 801-996-3628 svcafeutah.com
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“Dining at Matteo, for many people, is for special occasions only. I get it, it’s expensive,” said restaurateur Matteo Sogne of his eponymous fine dining destination Matteo Ristorante Italiano, which was also tapped as Salt Lake Magazine’s 2025 Best Restaurant earlier this year. Sogne envisions the newly opened Strada Cucina Italiana (translation: Italian street kitchen) in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City as the antidote to exclusivity. “We hope Strada will be a place where people will want to come in every week.”
If your budget is more of the Fiat than Ferrari bracket (same, sister), make a note to add Strada as a solid spot to work into your downtown rotation. It’s a bright and clean-lined space, with big banks of windows giving the dining room the feel of a bustling urban café. At Strada Cucina Italiana, they’ve streamlined the hell out of Matteo’s fine dining menu with appeal to the lunchtime crowd, a quick dinner downtown, or for DoorDash delivery. There’s no food item priced more than $17, and a sando/side/drink combo comes in at a super-reasonable 16 bucks for what you get at this level of quality.
Most of Strada’s menu features items sourced from the acclaimed Matteo kitchen. At the Ristorante mothership, Matteo’s mom Manuela bakes the ciabatta for the paninis and her cannoli are made to fill upon order. Executive Chef Damiano Carlotto prepares roasted pork, house-made sausage, meatballs, and chicken cutlets daily, and all of the charcuterie is sourced from Italy. These comfort food components are shuttled throughout the day to nearby Strada. Upon customer order, the elements are assembled and the panini is fired up using some kind of Italian-made industrial kitchen appliance that apparently costs as much as a pre-owned Lamborghini.
Strata offers a choose-your-own-adventure pasta bar. Photo by Darby Doyle.
I’m not mad at all about having Matteo Sogne’s team take the guesswork out of this fast-casual dining experience. The menu has a couple of appetizers—including Matteo’s must-order whipped brie with walnuts—a few salads, pastas, a short list of panini, and Manuela’s aforementioned classic cannoli and some pre-scooped cups of gelato ready to go. Sogne said that he’s most excited to source alcohol options that rotate seasonally, with a tight list of just one house red wine and a white, and a local beer. We had a nice chilled bottle of Lecciaia Orvieto Classico (a white blend of graciano, malvasia, and trebbiano) and it was an especially delightful sip on a hot August night.
Pasta lovers have the best kind of choose-your-own-adventure in store. Pick any one of six homemade pasta shapes on rotation from column A, and six fresh sauces listed in column B, and you’re slurping the same spectacular noods you’d have at Matteo, served lickety split. Some orientation notes for the uninitiated: Get the gnocchi before it sells out. The Matteo version of pesto is unusually light—more creamy than oily—with garlic playing more of a rhythm section role than the shrieking vocal you’ll find in many iterations. And the crispy pancetta notes in the pink vodka sauce are a nice saline touch. And yes, of course, nonna’s lasagna is also available, and you bet I’m looking forward to having a slab o’ that come cooler weather. Brava, nonna, brava.
Caesar salad and polpette at Strata. Photo by Darby Doyle.
Protein-focused folks will appreciate the healthy-ish options of salad bowls with grilled chicken or steak with chimichurri. Sure, I sampled a Caesar salad—because I’m physically incapable of not ordering a Caesar of any variety if it’s available—and it was both huge and satisfying; you can get it with their fabulously fluffy polpette (that’d be meatballs, fancy pants) or grilled chicken.
Arguably, the real stars of the show here are the flavor-packed panini, which I’ll get to after a bit of business model digression. Hang tight.
The brilliance of the Strada Cucina concept is Sogne’s vertical integration of the Matteo kitchen for the many customer and staff needs they serve. Case in point: Matteo Ristarante Italiano routinely caters game-night nosh for professional sports teams and events for deep-pocket downtown businesses. Meaning, their kitchen staff can dependably pump out high-quality menu items in quantities that can withstand a bit of travel and reheating upon arrival. And as Sogne was pleased to point out, having both the catering commissary based within Matteo and the Strada outlet around the corner supports their employees, who can depend on a consistent and year-round 40-hour work week. A rarity in the fine dining industry that will hopefully be another example of favoring better work-life balance, Italian style.
I shared all that to point out this: It’s not a typo on the panini menu that lists the sandos from #1 Nonna Romana (mortadella, burrata, pistachio) to #9 Piccante (made-in-house spicy Italian sausage, griddled onions and peppers, mozz) but takes a #33 detour in place of the number three spot for the most popular item on their menu: Chicken Parm. The #33 is in honor of Utah Mammoth hockey team President Chris Armstrong, and the hundreds—maybe at this point thousands—of chicken parm panini that have been repeatedly requested by the team. What makes this Italian-American fav a standout is, literally, all in the sauce: the springy ciabatta is smeared with both pesto and pink vodka sauce instead of the expected red gravy. It’s a perfect foil to the crisply breaded and tender-centered chicken parm cutlet. Those of us who have been traumatized by truffle oil abuse in the past few years (me, raising a shaking hand) will take solace in ordering the #8 Tarfufo: a mix of fontina, provolone, and mild truffle Pecorino, all encased in crunchy ciabatta and melted together in gooey gloriousness to make it the grilled cheese sammich of your dreams.
OG Italian Panini. Photo by Darby Doyle.
Without changing out of your post-gym hoodie, you can snag a taste of Sogne’s hometown of Modena, and at a fraction of the price you’d pay when dining at Matteo. Not that I’m going to ever stop dining at Matteo when given the opportunity. I’m a frugal hedonist, not a monster. Duh.
See more stories like this and all of our Food and Drinkcoverage. And while you’re here, why not subscribe and get six annual issues of Salt Lake magazine’s curated guide to the best life in Utah?
