Salute Italian Restaurant, which opened in Frisco in January 2024, is co-owned by married couple Kiki Ademi and Benny Spaiu, and business partner Steve Lee.

Spaiu created the menu's recipes while Ademi said she was in charge of creating the aesthetic, which she likens to “eating in the streets of Italy.”

The menu

Ademi said Spaiu incorporate family recipes into the menu, including his mother and uncles who are chefs in Italy. He also pulls from years of culinary training gained while working under the chefs in New York.

Popular menu items include baked lasagna, chicken parmesan and chicken marsala.


Ademi said they also have non-pasta dishes such as filet mignon, ribeye bistecca and frutti di mare, which is a seafood dish that includes lobster, calamari and shrimp.

“I'm a very simple girl—I love our chicken parmesan,” Ademi said. “I can always see how good an Italian restaurant is when I order the chicken parmesan.”

The set up

Steve Lee, who also owns Frisco Diner and Starwood Cafe on 121 in Frisco, runs the Salute in Frisco. Ademi said she spends more of her time at the Prosper location, which opened in February.


“We were expanding so we decided to take on a partner. We interviewed about 32 partners, and we thought he was most valuable,” Ademi said. “I trained him to run this store and he does it all.”

The backstory

When Ademi says she was born into the restaurant industry, she is not speaking figuratively.

“You know what's crazy? My mother gave birth to me in the women's bathroom at my father's first restaurant,” Ademi said. “She was working there as a dishwasher and her water broke. My aunt took the scissors off of my dad's desk and cut my umbilical cord.”