A heavenly dinner at The Salt Room

Mackerel, beetroot etc

In recent weeks, I’ve had a number of conversations with people who question what a ‘fine dining’ experience gives you other than a bigger hole in your wallet.

If you asked me that same question 15 years ago, I’d have been thinking along the same lines. But experience can be a great educator.

On Saturday night, working once more in Brighton, I headed for the Salt Room.

Having opened in February 2015, I’d first tried it, along with the Other Half, last June. When I was in the city again in October, I returned for a solo meal and after that, I never had any doubt that I’d be back as soon as possible.

If I’ve worked out one thing about what divides top-level dining from eating out lower down the scale, it’s that the really good experience is flawless throughout – however many courses you have.

Elsewhere, you might find that one or even two courses will be fine, but something else just won’t be up to the same level.

One of the things that I like about the menu at the Salt Room is that it’s proudly seasonal.

At the weekend, I began with a dish of mackerel, miso and beetroot in a variety of way, including pickled and as a ketchup.

Slip sole, turnip, nori butter, shrimps, celery, capers

The fish was cooked to perfection: griddled on the skin side until it was black, but with the flesh just done; flaking and moist.

One of the things that this sort of cooking makes you notice is just how fresh the fish was in the first place: you can taste the freshness – and the contrast with the crisped skin was sublime.

The use of Japanese flavour in miso was subtle and never threatened to overwhelm the delicate fish, while the beetroot provided an earthiness to the whole thing.

This was a joy to eat.

For a main course, I stuck with fish and opted for slip sole with diced turnip, nori butter, tiny shrimps, capers and celery.

Honestly, it really is no exaggeration to stress just how good this was. Again, the fish was clearly impeccably fresh and had been equally impeccably cooked.

It was a dish of extraordinary natural sweetness, tempered by the capers: very satisfying.

I didn’t bother with any side dishes (I’ve mentioned before that such a concept seems peculiarly British) – the portions were a perfect size for me.

One little guide to how good the food is at any restaurant is the issue of seasoning. There are salt and pepper pots on the tables at the Salt Room, but in three visits, I have never felt any remote temptation to pick either up.

Result

My waiter – Alfonso from Sicily; a knowledgeable charmer – thought that it was wrong to even offer customers the salt and pepper: some douse their food before even bothering to taste (something that Raymond Blanc described being appalled by in his book, A Taste of My Life).

It does beg the question of why you bother going to a good restaurant if you don’t start from a point of implicitly trusting the kitchen.

Another basis on which to recommend the Salt Room is that it has a far wider range of wines available by the glass than is often the case.

Here, Alfonso chatted with me about matching wine to my choices and gave me the chance to taste two wines before selecting. That’s really good service.

In the event, I enjoyed a Riesling Trimbach – but it was fascinating to have tried another possiblilty.

Being given time to sip my wine and contemplate the dessert menu in an unrushed gap between courses is, for me, vital.

So, what could I select to conclude such a meal?

It was an enticing dessert menu, but what stood out for me was rhubarb and custard: “custard tart, roasted rhubarb, rhubarb & Sauternes ice cream”.

Rhubarb and custard

It’s the start of the season for forced rhubarb, after all, and rhubarb is one of my favourite fruits, so selection was made easier.

A ‘custard’ of vanilla infused panna cotta, rich yet light at the same time, is served with rhubarb in a variety of ways – including a wonderful, wafer-thin crisp and ice cream – and a hint of crumble.

It was heavenly. There is nothing more that needs to be said.

If I have a liqueur after a meal, it’s usually a Disaronno, but Alfonso persuaded me to try something different – Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur – and it was a very pleasant way to conclude a simply superb meal.

You do get what you pay for in food terms – certainly in the UK at present. In France, you can still find little bistros and brasseries that give you a memorable experience for little outlay.

But as I’ve seen, time and time again in recent years, dining out both for pleasure and particularly when away from home for work, that sort of middle tier of eatery in the UK is often far from cheap for food that is far from sensational.

I have no doubt that I’ll return to the Salt Room again.

Christmas fodder – with last year's lessons learned

Pheasant two ways, with sauce, leeks and redcurrants

Last year, Christmas Day proved to be – in culinary terms at least – something of a catalogue of errors.

Over ambition led to The Other Half spending a ludicrously long time sitting on his own at the dining table as I stressed out in the kitchen between every course, trying to produce dishes that, if not beyond my skill level, were far too ambitious in terms of planning.

And of course, needless to say, my own enjoyment of the meal – and of the day as a whole, and of the days, given my frenetic running up to the main day itself – were all affected negatively.

So how did I avoid that, without compromising on quality and taste?

The big thing to learn is planning.

This year, I started from a point of Christmas Day’s main course as being a chicken, roasted for three and a half hours, as per the River Café and as I’ve done many time previously.

Okay, I changed the stuffing from a Mediterranean-style one to pre-cooked chestnuts, masses of sage and a chopped onion, but the method was one I knew well.

The Other Half had been angling for me to try a chocolate fondant as dessert: we’ll return to that later.

For a starter – well, I wasn’t even sure about doing one, until very late in the piece (the Saturday before Christmas) when I happened on some London gin-cured duck charcuterie on Broadway Market from the London Charcutier (find out more via@LDNCharcutier on Twitter).

No, it wasn’t cheap, but it screamed an easy, high-quality starter. I already had a load of pickles in the cupboard and I could instantly envisage serving it on my oblong slates. All it would need besides was bread.

Now for me, Christmas Eve screams game. The weekend before, since they had no breasts, I’d picked up a whole pheasant from the new Broadway Market game stall (glory hallelujah!).

Now it’s a nightmare trying to roast such a bird whole because of the different cooking needs of different parts of the bird – which is why chefs do different bits separately – so I quickly came to the conclusion that I could do the breasts in butter (as I’ve done many times now) and the legs as a confit.

Bt this still left me with the interesting challenge of butchering the bird.

I swotted via the internet: most was simple, but I discovered that one of the reasons the legs can be so difficult is that the muscles in them make them tough.

You can, though, remove the muscles – and I have the Wüsthof cooking tweezers for the job. It was fiddly – yet oddly fascinating: how many of us know what muscles look like?

The upper leg bones were snipped out and they rest was salted for half an hour.

That was then brushed off and the legs were simmered in duck fat for two hours. Easy. To serve, they were simply heated in a medium oven for 20 minutes.

On the side, were leeks, a sprig of redcurrants and a red wine and redcurrant sauce.

But what I also set out to do on Christmas Eve was try fondants.

Duck charcuterie and pickles

I have recipes by Michel Roux Snr and Raymond Blanc.

The former – which demands vast amounts of eggs – gives no help on how to time it in terms of a wider meal.

Blanc, however, does precisely that, providing a method of mixing that allows you to then chill the mixture for up to 24 hours or cook within a couple.

This won out. I made the mix according to Blanc – it requires far fewer eggs, but does need arrowroot – and then divided it between four rings: two for that night and two for Christmas Day itself.

After a required chilling of at least 30 minutes, the first pair were cooked at 190˚C (fan) for five minutes and then cooled and chilled, before being cooked again for eight minutes at 170˚C (fan) when we needed them.

They collapsed slowly when the rings were lifted away after the first cook, and were not actually liquid in the middle, but they were were thoroughly tasty.

Lesson learned though: the initial cooking needed to be at a higher temperature – since there were no notes on the recipe I used (an online version of a slightly more complex one in a book on the shelf) I had assumed that the temperatures for the cooking were for an ordinary oven.

Anyway, the pheasant was good and the fondant, although floppy, was very morish.

Christmas Day itself was the easiest it’s been in years.

Christmas roast – with neatly turned carrots!

We had a proper breakfast this time – I didn’t need to occupy the entire kitchen for the entire day – and having two ovens and a separate grill was also a help.

The bird was the expected doddle. On the side we had spuds roasted in a little duck fat with a few leaves of sage to continue flavour themes.

Sprouts had been done in the morning à la Joël Robuchon: soak for two minutes in water with a glug of malt vinegar; drain and rinse, then blanch for a minute in boiling salted water.

Refresh and stop the cooking by plunging them into iced water, then cook for 20 minutes in fresh boiling, salted water, just allowing the water to bubble.

Plunge once more into iced water and then drain and gently dry. Robuchon says that this method improves the ‘digestibility’ of the sprouts, Or the fart factor, as we might less politely refer to it.

It does – but it’s also a very good cheffy trick for being able to cut down work later on. Come the time, just heat some butter and sauté the little emerald gems – as I did, with some sliced pancetta and more chopped chestnuts.

The only other thing I added was a portion of carrots, which I prepped early, actually managing to turn them, and then cooked very gently, with water to cover, a knob of butter, a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar, for 30 minutes while we ate our starter and I finished the rest of the main.

Collapsed – but still tasty. The fondant

That starter was easy: slice some bread, put some of the charcuterie on a slate with some pickled beetroot, cornichons, tiny onions and some very nice fig, apple and Balsamic chutney, and it was done.

Before doing the roast potatoes, I’d given the fondants their first cook, which then allowed them the minimum chill between sojourns in the oven.

They still collapsed when I was actually trying to serve them, but did have a liquid centre. More arrowroot may be required. We had cape gooseberries, redcurrants and a small amount of top-quality vanilla ice cream on the side.

And on Boxing Day, the usual boiled ham with a sour brown shallot sauce, which was hardly onerous, and which was served this year with plain boiled spuds and sauerkraut on the side.

So, that was the Christmas food: lessons learned, ambitions tempered – and results just as good (if not better) and certainly more enjoyable for all.

It can be done!

If you think food is food is food – think again

Utterly divine Yorkies and filling

It’s a fairly familiar moan of mine that here in the UK, far too few people really rate food highly and instead, treat it essentially as straightforward fuel, rather than one of life’s great pleasures.

A pleasure, incidentally, that taken with a dose of seriousness, would almost certainly be healthier for you than the food-as-fuel attitude that drives the punters in their millions into the supermarket ready-meal aisles for supplies of ping food.

And the same attitude reveals itself in other ways too: for instance, when people suggest that there’s no point in paying the kind of money a top-quality restaurant will charge, because, after all, ‘food is just food’.

Well no, it really isn’t.

On Friday night, with a trip to the theatre in the offing, we needed food first.

Now The Other Half and I generally like to avoid chains and franchises, and most certainly what would be called fast food joints.

When you’ve got two hours to fill, you might as well sit down and enjoy something decent.

Since we were heading to Shaftsbury Avenue, I had been considering where to eat in that vicinity. But I was struggling.

We thought about a Chinese – how about the legendary Poons, for instance?

It was agreed that that sounded like a good idea, but then I discovered that that establishment has gone the way of all flesh.

Soho is not what it once was – changing as developers move in: and for the worse, in my opinion.

We ummed and ahhed, and I trawled the internet looking for anything with consistently decent reviews, but all without finding anything remotely inspiring.

In the end, I tried out a rather different idea on The Other Half: what about an early dinner down the road at The Gilbert Scott, and a cab to the theatre after?

He readily agreed – which pleased me, since I’ve been dying for a chance to return since my own first visit 15 months ago for the set lunch, and also wanted to introduce him to this rather special place.

It would, rather obviously, be more expensive than we’d expect to pay if we’d stuck with the idea of dining nearer the theatre.

So what do you get for spending all that extra filthy lucre?

Well, you get a very great deal.

To start with, though, it’s worth pointing out that most middle-range restaurants are not cheap.

Yet what you will frequently find is that, if one course is good, the others won’t match it for standard.

What you get at top restaurants is, in essence, simple: flawless cooking all the way through.

The Gilbert Scott is no exception.

Arriving a little early on Friday, as the team was still having its pre-service meeting, we sat in the bar for cocktails – a wonderful, refreshing rhubarb and ginger sour (with vodka) for me – and popcorn.

Now popcorn is ‘in’ at the moment. And popcorn is also not something that The Other Half likes. But this was just wonderful – and I was far from being alone in chucking it into my mouth.

Not that this was just any old popcorn, mind, but very carefully flavoured. I couldn’t quite work out what the subtle smokiness was – fortunately, chef Nick Ward later explained to me that they cook it with smoked butter from their salmon supplier.

So, what was first up for dinner itself?

In an exception to any previous experience, we both had the same.

To start with, a Yorkshire fishcake with lavabread mayonnaise, and topped with a divine little sprig of ever-so-fresh herbs (chervil, dill and chives) that was far more than a careless garnish, but added a glorious bitterness to the gentle sweetness of the fishcake itself.

For our mains, it was wild pigeon, roasted with tiny onions and mushrooms, and lardons, in a truly voluptuous gravy, and poured into individual Yorkshire puddings at the table.

Now that’s great restaurant threatre, of course, but it also ensures that the pudding is as crisp as possible when it reaches the diner.

Did I say “crisp”?

Now I don't consider myself bad at Yorkies, but I have never tasted one so good – and nor had that thoroughbred Tyke himself, The Other Half. Neither, should it be added, had I ever tasted such tender pigeon.

On the side, we opted for white tenderstem broccoli and carrots cooked in tarragon and star anise.

Both were cooked to perfection – none of that ‘al dente’ means almost-raw nonsense, while the carrots were perfectly complimented by the tarragon and the warmth of the star anise.

We didn’t have the time to sit and digest, and then order a dessert – but I know that we’d both have opted for Yorkshire rhubarb posset, if we had had that time.

The Other Half could see a regional theme here that he rather liked.

In the last year or so, we’ve finally sussed that, in really good restaurants, ordering a glass of wine doesn't simply translate as the house white or red, so we picked a good white for the fishcakes and a good red for the pigeon.

The former was a Riesling ‘Brauneberger Juffer’, Kabinett, Paulinshof, from Germany’s Mosel, while the latter was a Côte du Rhône, Domaine Charvin, from France.

The Riesling in particular was superb – great bouquet, great length, great taste. It’s the same wine I’d enjoyed on my previous visit, and it was most gratifying to find that The Other Half was really impressed with it too.

The service was exemplary: friendly, attentive but never intrusive.

The dining room is a pleasure in itself.

It probably doesn’t need pointing out that we will be returning – and recommending it highly to all and sundry.

Next time, I want longer – not least because the menu itself is worth browsing over at leisure before you even get down to eating.

The food, as you’ll probably have gathered, is not the kind of obviously French-influenced cuisine that has blossomed in high-end British restaurants under the tutelage and influence of the Rouxs and Raymond Blanc, and which has massively improved at least some of the country’s restaurant scene.

But then again, Marcus Wareing, who designed the menus for the Gilbert Scott, is himself immersed in what Michel Roux Jr would call “The Classics”.

It is a menu, though, that makes you aware and proud of our British food heritage – and when such food is done like this, it is as good as anything else.

It will equally need little pointing out that it was all rather more expensive than it would have been if we had trawled around the Shaftsbury Avenue area and simply found somewhere – anywhere! – to eat.

But I hope that what I’ve done here is to illustrate exactly why, in food terms, you really do get what you pay for.

I still remember – without needing to look it up – what I ate on that first visit to the Gilbert Scott, over a year ago. I cannot recall what I ate at a small restaurant near Charing Cross just two months ago on our last visit to the theatre.

I rather doubt that either us of will find this meal to have been instantly forgettable.

And that really should tell you something.

A dish like your favourite cardigan

Pyracantha berries – nearly ready for the birds

We studied a number of the poems of Keats during my schooling, but with the exception of this first stanza of Ode to Autumn, from 1819, they made me gurn at the mawkishness of them.

This, on the other hand, had something sensual about it; something of the voluptuousness of the season.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the mos’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

The third of the stanzas in that Keats ode deals with the dying of the year.

Looking back on it, I can see why I didn’t appreciate that bit of the work as much: for a teenager growing up in a family that was far too absorbed with death and guilt and sin, it was almost impossible to comprehend death as an integral part of life, and to see that the cycle of life and death and life again was what Keats was noting.

Actually, the whole poem is a beautifully evocative description of England at this time of year. Yes – there are even hints of such sights and sounds to be found and experienced in The Smoke.

The weather changed two days ago, with temperatures falling by such noticeable degrees that a scarf was suddenly in order for the mornings.

With the nights having already drawn in, we’ve arrived at the days when the cardi and slippers call.

The cardigan of the food world – the ultimate comfort food – is soup. And this weekend offered the perfect opportunity to get busy creating warming bowls of comfort.

Chopped onions and garlic, softening

Given that La Bouche has Roscoff onions in, it was an obvious leap to opt for the first French onion soup of the season.

You can certainly use other onions (depending on what you can find), but the point is to make sure hat you’re decent. It’s the point of the dish, after all, so you want some quality flavour.

But perhaps most vital of all, this soup needs time: it’s not the business of 20 minutes.

For two people, I took four of the Roscoff onions, peeled and chopped them.

Now Raymond Blanc suggests slicing, but since The Other Half grouches and says he prefers chopped, this is one occasion on which I will ignore the great chef.

I use a Le Creuset shallow casserole dish to cook this – it allows a far better ratio of cooking surface to onion than any other pan I possess and, of course, its heat-retaining qualities work wonders with such a dish.

So, chop your onions, plus some garlic (four cloves for the two of us).

Over a gentle heat, melt a generous amount of butter – and I do mean generous: 50g won’t go amiss.

When the last of the solids have disappeared into a pool of yellow, pop in your onion and garlic and spread it evenly over the base of the pan. And then let everything start to do its magic.

Slowly does it, remember: this is a marathon of love, not a sprint of convenience.

More colours of autumn

It can take a long time to start browning, but don’t be tempted to turn up the temperature beyond what allows the liquid butter to just – and only just! – produce the odd bubble. Quite apart from anything else, you don’t want to burn either the butter or the garlic.

Don’t be tempted to stir it too much either or it won’t brown.

Now if you really want, you can try a bit of a cheat here, although I’m not convinced of its efficacy. A sprinkle of sugar is claimed by some to speed up the caramelisation process. As I said: I’m unconvinced – and it adds a sort of sweetness to the dish that you don’t want. Given the time it needs, this will sweeten up gorgeously all on its own.

Fast forward and the onion has turned golden. Sprinkle a little plain flour over it and stir in gently. Let it cook through for a minute or so, and then start adding some white wine.

To be honest, I don’t have developed enough taste buds to be able to really notice what I use in such a situation, but I stuck with M Blanc’s golden rule and spent less than a fiver on a bottle, the rest of which was destined for further culinary deployment.

Once you’ve got the got the pan deglazed, add a little stock too (chicken or vegetable; fresh or a cube*), then a sprig of thyme and a couple of bay leaves, cover and leave to simmer oh so gently for a good 40 minutes.

And that’s pretty much that. Check the seasoning – if you used a stock cube, you’re unlikely to need to add any further salt, but a grind or three of pepper will hardly go amiss.

French onion soup with gruyere croutons

To serve in the traditional way, you need a ‘crouton’ or two – no, not little cubes, but, to be strictly accurate, slices of toasted baguette.

Dish up the soup, place a crouton on top of each bowl and scatter coarsely grated gruyere cheese on top, before popping it briefly under the grill so that the cheese starts melting all the way off the bread and into the soup.

It goes without saying that there’s nothing wrong with using something like Cheddar if you can’t get gruyere, but the latter does have a nutty taste that matches superbly with the onion in this dish.

Of course, if – like The Other Half – you don’t like cheese, you do without this added treat or have a crouton spread with mustard.

Now sit and wrap yourself in the warm comfort of this wonderful classic.

It’s worth every moment.

* If you use stock cubes, I recommend Kallo’s Just Bouillon. Unlike most other stock cubes, it doesn’t use palm oil in the ingredients, and the production of this oil is doing grave damage to the habitat of orangutans, so it's a good one to avoid.