Osteria Salvatore Pizza in Chuo-ku, Sapporo

As part of our list of Sapporo pizza restaurants, we present this review of Osteria Salvatore Sapporo Pizza, in Chuo-ku, Sapporo; a respectable Neapolitan pizza option in downtown Sapporo City.

“Osteria” is an Italian word that references a simple, restaurant. This is a pizza shop, but it’s name implies something like a “bistro.” This shop is named after the Italian chef Salvatore Cuomo, the man responsible for the menu and recipes. In my research for this review, I learned that there are over 50 restaurants in Japan under his name; this one is called Osteria Salvatore Sapporo, and is sometimes listed online in katakana as ホテルモントレエーデルホフ札幌.

(There is also a Salvatore Cuomo & Bar Susukino.)

There are other things on the menu, but I’m focused on the pizza.

The Osteria Salvatore in Sapporo is located just to the east side of Soseigawa Park, just north of the Sapporo Library. This location was the former home of Pizzeria E Bar La Giostra (ピッツェリア エ バール ラ・ジョストラ), which closed in early 2025 (?). Osteria Salvatore Sapporo has taken over that space, and the big beautiful Stefano Ferrara Forni pizza oven (and she is a beauty).

Osteria Salvatore – an Italian restaurant where you can enjoy the bounty of Hokkaido’s land and sea combined with Neapolitan craftsmanship, will have its grand opening in Sapporo on Tuesday, November 4, 2025!

Inside: nice place, more modern that most of Sapporo. There are about 10 tables. Closer to the kitchen, there are some counter seats from which you can see the pizzas going in and out of the oven.

On the pizza menu: maybe 25+ pizzas. Six Margherita Pizzas, four varieties of Marinara Pizza, six Tomato Sauce Pizzas, seven more Bianca “No Tomato Sauce” Pizzas, two more “Fantasia” Pizzas. There was also a Burrata Pizza on the Special Menu. Perhaps as much as 28 different pizzas in all.

Prices range from 1700 JPY for a simple Marinara, to 2900 JPY for the prosciutto-loaded Biancaneve Pizza, and to 4800 JPY for the special Burrata Cheese Pizza.

I like Osteria Salvatore Pizzeria. The location is convenient, the pizza is high-end and tasty, and I have eaten there myself at least two times. The first time I was there, I was there for lunch, and had a better impression than the second time. I’ll share my thoughts on all that below.

On the lunch menu at Sapporo’s Salvatore, they have a “set” special, which includes a pizza, an appetizer, and a drink. At the time of my first visit, they had a mushroom and sausage pizza on the lunch menu.

Pizza with Hokkaido Pork Salsiccia & Mushrooms Pizza: Salsiccia (Hokkaido Pork Sausage), Assorted Mushrooms, Basil, Mozzarella, Grana Padano
— From the (old) lunchtime pizza menu at Osteria Salvatore

First bite: the warmth of the crust and cheese, then the earthiness of the spongy mushrooms, then the spicy bite of the sausage. Amazing. Finished with the taste of charred bits of the crust.

I didn’t realize it when I ordered it, but this was a bianca pizza, no sauce. In fact, I even peeled the cheese back from a slice to check. Without any tomato taste, it was pure savory, with fennel coming through from the sausage. Loaded with toppings, meaty and filling, it was satisfying. With no sauce or heavy oil taste, it was almost a “light” meal.

Delicious crust. Perfectly done by the pizza master, just a little bit of char spots adding to the meaty flavor. The dominant taste cutting through in the end was the sausage; just enough fat to provide a satisfying flavor, cooked crisp, without being at all greasy. Fantastic.
— From my notes that day

I like a bit of hot spice with my pizza. On this day, I looked for some oil or pepper flakes, but there was none at my table. All the same, there was a lingering spicy burn after each bit. Looking more closely, the pizza was dosed with pepper flakes before it was served. Perfect touch.

I was really impressed.

Below I am going to tell you about an almost identical mushroom and sausage pizza I had at Osteria Salvatore for dinner (on another day), and they were not the same at all. I know (from the pictures) that there was a different pizza master on duty on the second time, and I think he just can’t deliver the same quality as the first guy.

Anyway, on that first lunch, along with that pizza, and a drink, the lunch set included an appetizer.

Look at that. A full sample of several tastes.

Appetizer: A few bites of a baked dish of vegetables, covered with cheese (like a veggie lasagna); Two bites of something like chicken (I asked: turned out to be chicken liver) in a green olive oil, excellent; a lovely little green salad with thin sliced watermelon radish, cherry tomato, and some little beans; a single, deep fried sardine (?), in vinegar, with what might have been raisons (like a escaviche).

Amazing. That lunch set had a base price of 1650 JPY. For that sausage pizza, there was an additional 200 JPY charge. For that 1850 JPY price, it was a very good experience.

I really enjoyed that lunch, and I wondered (at the time), if Osteria Salvatore might be able to compete as the new “best pizza in Sapporo.”  On my second visit, I was there for dinner, I had the opportunity to try two more pizzas, and I was less enthusiastic.

We had two pizzas on that seconds visit, the first of which was their tuna pizza. I had been excited to try it when I saw it on the menu the previous time.

Throughout my travels as Pizza Czar of Japan, I have been intentionally trying to eat pizza with fish and other sea-sourced toppings. I had an amazing Octopus Pizza at Azzurri Pizzeria in Kobe (they call it the Pizza Normanna). The Oyster and Bacon Pizza at Savoy Ezo here in Sapporo was fantastic. On the more exotic side, I talk about a raw shrimp pizza in my review of Pizza Bar on 38th, in Tokyo.

On the Osteria Salvatore menu, there were at least a few pizzas with some kind of seafood; the Cicenielli Pizza (an Italian classic), and several pizzas with anchovy. However, it was the “tuna” pizza that I was most eager to try.

Marinara Tonno Pizza: Tomato Sauce, Italian Tuna, Oregano, Anchovy, Capers, Garlic, Onion
— From the Osteria Salvatore pizza menu

As the pictures make obvious, this is another beautiful pizza; although I was surprised, as it arrived, to see so much red onion.

Even as I stared at all those thin slices of “purple” onion, my first impressions were… that smell – it was the garlic. And in that aroma, maybe some faint hint of the tuna itself.

So much onion, though. I was originally concerned the onion would be overwhelming, but it was not; the pizza oven had de-fanged any potential dominance. As served, the onions added a wonderful crunchy quality. The tuna was, subtle, underwhelming, and also – pasty, and undercooked.

It was a good pizza (I did like the onion, after all), but it was not impressive. I asked for some “heat,” and was given a bottle of olive oil with chili flakes in it. I added a few drops of hot chili oil, and it woke that pizza up significantly. I liked it much better. Perhaps this pizza was under-seasoned?

I remain open to the idea of a very good tuna pizza, but I haven’t found one yet. The raw tuna pizza at Savoy Asabujuban (in Tokyo) was very beautiful, and interesting, but not something I would order again. Savoy uses fresh tuna, and it is supposed to be raw as served. At Caravan Pizza in Nagoya, I had another tuna pizza; it was a “cracker” pizza, different in many ways (with much more tuna taste), good, but not great. The tuna on the Caravan tuna pizza was probably less moist as it went into the oven, and less wet on arrival.

Our second pizza that night was basically the same mushroom sausage pizza from above; very similar to the one I’d had at lunch on my first visit.

Funghi e Salsiccia Pizza: Tomato Sauce, Salsiccia (Hokkaido Pork Sausage), Assorted Mushrooms, Basil, Mozzarella, Grana Padano
— From the Osteria Salvatore menu

You can see this one had tomato sauce, but was otherwise built with the same toppings.

There are several kinds of mushrooms on that pizza, including the cartoon-like, skinny shemiji mushroom. The sausage (again) had a great savory flavor, but was just barely cooked (not cooked enough). When I look at my notes from the lunch-time version, I said the sausage was “crispy.” The sausage on this pizza was soft, and missing that “charred” flavor.

Overall, this Funghi e Salsiccia Pizza was a much more high-impact pizza than the tuna, better than the tuna. That spicy basil smell was good stuff. Compared to tuna pizza, the sausage was much more bold, more aggressive.

And yet…

My second visit was kind of disappointing. The sausage pizzas were so similar, but the second one wasn’t nearly as satisfying. Should have been the same, but I liked the lunch pizza so much more. I even think the crust was better the first time… but knowing that this is a chain restaurant, the recipe is likely the same. Same dough, same recipe, not as good.

As I write this review, I wonder if the oven was not hot enough? Or if the pizza just needed a bit more time to cook? We do see some blackened leopard spots on the crust, but not as much as my first lunch. And both the sausage and the tuna came out almost too moist; cooked, but like a paste.

With my particular pizza-nerd passion for details and the art of good pizza in Japan, I set a stopwatch to record the time in the oven; I do this often. A Osteria Salvatore that night, pizzas where coming out of the oven at 1:30 seconds. That is much longer many other pizza restaurants (and it would take longer if the oven wasn’t hot enough). For comparison, on a recent night at PST Higashi Azabu (in Tokyo), the time in-oven for those pizzas (*checking my notes*) was a lightning fast 43.3 seconds (which is the fastest I have ever seen). Here in Sapporo, Da Massimo pizzas come out of the oven in 45 – 50 seconds (before they get their very blackened crusts scrapped, scrapped, scrapped).

While my duties as Pizza Czar have allowed me to accumulate quite a bit of experience, I will freely admit I am not a pizza master; my opinions here come only from my experience on the other side of the counter. I do know, however, that not all pizza ovens are the same, not at all. Elefante Pizza in Kobe makes a wonderful Naples-style pizza (I had a seafood pizza there, as well), and his oven takes three minutes or more to get that pizza just right. But even if it takes longer, it can still come out fully cooked – the attention of the pizza master can accommodate different oven temperatures. With my mild effort at humility, I will say again; it is my sense that these pizzas may were not cooked enough.

I did give the crust on these pizzas my classic “pizza test:”

While many Napoletana pizzas in Japan come with paper thin crusts, or so heavily loaded with olive oil that they cannot be picked up, in this case; yes, you can pick a slice of this pizza up, and eat it by hand.

At the time of this writing, I would probably rank Osteria Salvatore in the top five pizza restaurants in Sapporo, but closer to #5.  The top three spots are all very different, but for this neighborhood, I think Savoy Ezo makes much better pizza.  If you can travel a bit (and arrive when he is open, which not that easy), Da Massimo is certainly a more special, better pizza. I love Makino Farms pizza (but they are only available once a month).

Good pizza. Not my favorite in town, but recommended.

Pizza in Sapporo

— Located in the same neighborhood, Savoy Ezo Pizza offers high-quality Neapolitan pizza
— For an outstanding garlicky Marinara pizza, check out Da Massimo in Shiroishi-ku, Sapporo
— The farmers from Makino Farms make wonderful little Neapolitan pizza at Makino Pizza (one or two days a month, only)
— A very formulaic Napoletana pizza at Dalsegno Pizza in Chuo-ku, Sapporo
— Quirky neighborhood style pizza at the American-theme Smile Kitchen Pizza Diner
— The only New York pizza slices at Pizza Joint Pike in Chuo-ku, Sapporo
— There is a full menu that includes good Neapolitan-style pizza at Agora Pizza in Chuo-ku, Sapporo
— One of the worst Chicago pizzas in all of Japan can be found at The Craft in Susukino in Chuo-ku, Sapporo