Change language
Actions
Displays
Remove from selection
Add to selection
Abstract

She won an MBE for services to the London restaurant scene in 2005 but by far her proudest moment was when she got to run a Soho restaurant that carried her name.

Elena Salvoni, legendary “Queen of Soho”, restaurant maitre d’ and friend to the stars who died aged 95 last month, had a career spanning eight decades. And its highlight came when restaurateur Roy Ackerman kept a long-standing promise to buy a restaurant for her – Elena’s Etoile.

The funeral service took place at St John the Evangelist church in Duncan Terrace, Angel

This story was told by son Louie at Elena’s funeral service at St John the Evangelist church in Duncan Terrace, Angel – a stone’s throw away from the Noel Road home she lived in for more than 80 years.

Hundreds turned out for the service led by Rev Monsignor Séamus O’Boyle – the great and the good of the restaurant industry and celebrities including writer and broadcaster Lord Melvyn Bragg.

Paying tribute to his mother, Louie, 53, said: “Elena lived a life full of people. Her charm was to become legendary. She enjoyed nothing more than a restaurant full of people.

Legendary maitre d’ Elena Salvoni died last month at the age of 95. Right: Elena with Aldo on their wedding day, April 20, 1941

“She had an interest [in Elena’s Etoile] but she was never the owner. But with her commitment, you’d think she built it brick by brick. She was never driven by financial gain but just wanted to see people happy and relaxed.”

Elena, who grew up in Clerkenwell, left school to work in the rag trade but quickly found herself working in restaurants. She started as a waitress at the age of 14 at Café Bleu in Soho before following restaurant manager Joseph Paccino to Bianchi’s, where she worked for 30 years.

She had tried to retire aged 65, but her talents were so much in demand she continued to work for almost three more decades, first at L’Escargot, where she became well known as a restaurant manager, at the Gay Hussar, and finally at L’Etoile.

Speaking of her taking over Elena’s Etoile, Louie added: “Forget the fact that she was 74. She grabbed [the opportunity] with the intensity of a 21-year-old.”

Elena retired five years ago when, days after celebrating her 90th birthday, she was asked to leave Elena’s L’Etoile after it became too expensive to insure her against accidents. But she continued to host a twice-monthly “lunch with Elena” event at the Little Italy restaurant in Soho, later moving the event to nearby Quo Vadis.

Aldo, her husband of 60 years, died in May 2011 aged 91. The couple, who had met at St Peter’s school in Clerkenwell, were married at the nearby St Peter’s Italian Church in 1941.

Louie said: “They married on April 20 because it was Hitler’s birthday. They thought it would be a good day because London would not be bombed, but they were wrong.”

Speaking after the service, Lord Bragg said he first encountered Elena in Bianchi’s in Greek Street in the 1960s, when he was an “ill-paid researcher at the BBC”.

“Everyone went there,” he said. “There was Stephen Spender [the poet and novelist], David Hockney [painter], and I was there. Elena was quite wonderful. She was absolutely brilliant at her job.”

Elena leaves two grown-up children, Louie and Adriana, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Her family are also organising a memorial service in Soho later this year.