Our reviewer visits one of the city's newest hot spots for dining out...and sister to the popular Figbar.
Since opening its doors in July as the savoury sister restaurant to Figbar, SALT has become known for its colourful salads and inspired breakfast dishes - gooseberry compote and chocolate quinoa granola, anyone?
On this occasion, we set our sights on the sharing plates and salads. When we arrived, the atmosphere was laid back, mostly filled with couples and old friends catching up. It's easy to feel at home when you're surrounded by warm earthy tones, and soft amber lighting, not to mention, the complimentary olive bread fresh out of the oven. We ordered our drinks, a glass of white wine for me and a gin and tonic cocktail for my boyfriend. If you're after variety outside of wine then SALT has quite a limited drinks menu, but despite this the strawberry and black pepper gin with cucumber seltzer went down a treat.
Keeping with the casual vibes, there isn't table service - instead, you go up and order your dishes and then everything arrives together. Originally, we ordered the SALT cod brandade and roasted baby leeks with mint oil and pine nut puree. Sadly the latter was sold out, so we were recommended to try the wild mushrooms on toast. As I'm a huge fan of mushrooms, especially when they are cooked with garlic and Parmesan, this wasn't a problem.
To accompany our two main plates, we ordered three salads for £9, and once we saw the generous portion sizes we realised two salads would have been plenty. Nevertheless, our smorgasboard of flavour consisted of beetroot and goats' cheese, kale, herb and bulgar wheat salad with mixed seeds and cranberries, and smoked aubergine with coconut bacon and Russian dressing. The chunky beetroot was firm and fresh with a sweetness that complimented the sour creamy goats' cheese.
On the other end of the spectrum, the kale salad was incredibly zesty and light which made for a great palate cleanser alongside the cod brandade. The fish was served cold with the consistency and texture similar to rillettes and came with toasted bread. We ordered this one because it appeared to be a signature dish on the menu, so we wanted to try the best of SALT. Unsurprisingly, the cod itself did not disappoint, but we would have preferred less crouton-esque style bread as it was a bit too crunchy and charred for our taste.
The only hot dish we ordered was pure comfort food, a pile of garlic mushrooms on top of a thick slice of farmhouse bread and one fried duck egg sunny-side up. We could have easily eaten three times the amount of mushrooms, not because of stingy portion sizes but just out of pure greed. On the whole, we mixed and matched the dishes but kept coming back to the mushrooms, forks clashing over the last bite.
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