Salt (Stratford-upon-Avon)

Three menus were on offer at lunch – the a la carte at £40 for three courses, the tasting menu of 6 courses for £50 or the set lunch as mentioned at £27.50 for three courses (£22.50 for two courses).  These in themselves are very good value for money but especially pleasing when the add ons of homemade malt bread was as appealing as it was perfectly malleable Oxfordshire butter and opening canape of potato waffle with truffle and goats curd to nibble on whilst looking at the menu.  In fact, I should say that the bloody Mary had here, made with herbs from the garden was an absolute killer with its lovage oil and spices as well.

My starter consisted of Wye Valley asparagus smoked egg yolk, pea tartare with lemon and rapeseed oil was excellent; the smoked yolk that was slow cooked adding its richness to the vegetables was counterbalanced nicely by the pea tartare, cutting through nicely. In fact the dressing for this pea tartare was perhaps the best element on the dish.

The main I opted for was the BBQ beef with miso turnip, Swiss chard and yeast purée which, was a very pleasing combination.  The set menu is always going to have cheaper cuts of meat to make the prices of the set menu possible, but it was good to see that the philosophy of this restaurant was to be happier using cheaper cuts and treat them well as opposed to simply use more expensive ingredients and not handle or present these as well.

A simple strawberry dessert came with a buttermilk pistachio ice cream, crumbs lime curd (cream) and sugar tuile. The tang of the lime worked well here with ice cream I thought and mercifully the sugar tuile was not the kind that would weld your teeth together and was more gentle on the chewing.  Coffee was of the Single Estate yellow bourbon Brazil variety and came with a petit four choux bun with pines and custard profiterole with pine powder & dehydrated raspberry powder.  I appreciated the effort that went into this single petit four, which had a decent filling but found the choux pastry a touch dry on this.

I enjoyed this outing and the hour and a half train ride from London (in my case) was not the hardest journey to undergo by a long stretch and if you are native to Stratford or even passing through, I would obviously recommend a pop in here yourself.