Meet the Authors: Savage Salads’ Kristina Gustafsson & Davide Del Gatto

This month we were hugely excited to see new cookbook Savage Salads hit the shelves. The guys behind this fantastic new release, Kristina Gustafsson and Davide Del Gatto, have spent years serving satisfying salads from their popular London food stall to crowds of adoring fans – they’re experts at creating punchy flavours and exciting combinations. Seasonal ingredients, exciting flavours, irresistibly good: this is healthy food the Savage Salads way!

Today we catch up with Kristina and Davide on the release of their debut cookbook and find out about the recipes and ingredients they couldn’t live without…

1) Huge congratulations on the release of Savage Salads. What inspired you to write the book?

Because we constantly change our salads due to weather and season we create new recipes and salad combinations all the time. We often get asked about our recipes by customers and when we were asked the question would we be interested in writing a book we immediately said yes. We have taken our inspirations from our own countries Sweden and Italy but also from all the restaurants we have worked in over the years.

2) Can you tell us a little bit about how your food stall Savage Salads came about?

Davide and I started Savage Salads in 2012. We both loved salads but there were not many places doing other salads than just leaf and raw veg. Also most salad places only catered for vegetarians and we wanted to do something that could be enjoyed by meat eaters as well as vegetarians and vegans and that would keep you full longer. That’s why we started Savage Salads.

3) What was your favourite part of putting the book together? 

The best part was the photo shoot. It was great to see all the recipes come together and also it wasn’t until then that we actually realised that we would have our own book out a few months later.

4) What are your favourite recipes from the book?

I (Kristina) love the grilled apricot and peach salad. It is just amazing on a hot summer day. Davide’s favourite is the grilled rump steak.

Grilled Apricots & Peaches, Couscous, Mint, Serrano Ham, Pine Nuts – the perfect summer dish that’s super easy to make!

Davide’s fave recipe: Grilled Rump Steak, Daikon, Watercress, Carrots, Sesame Seeds, Sesame Oil – a great choice for a low-carb but filling meal.

5) What ingredients couldn’t you live without?

Hmmm.. maybe tomatoes since you can cook so many different things with them. Lemon is a great one too.

Beetroot and Tomato Gazpacho – if you’re a fan of traditional gazpacho you should definitely give this one a try.

6) What big plans do you have for the rest of the year?

We have just opened another market stall which is taking up a lot of our time at the moment. The plan is to continue growing until we can open our own savage salads shop one day!

Savage Salads: Fierce Flavours, Filling Power-Ups by Davide Del Gatto & Kristina Gustafsson, photography by Kim Lightbody. Published by Frances Lincoln (£16.99).

KRISTINA GUSTAFSSON is a former restaurant manager and food enthusiast from Sweden.

DAVIDE DEL GATTO is a chef from Italy.

Together they run the SAVAGE SALADS stall in Soho, London serving healthy, fresh, gourmet salads to hundreds of adoring fans. www.savagesalads.co.uk