Viva Brighton April 2015 Issue #26

food review
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The Salt Room
A brill meal, by the sea
I love ordering things
I’ve never eaten before,
especially when I
haven’t a clue what
they’ll look like. So,
on my first visit to the
Salt Room, on an inordinately
warm March
afternoon, I go for the
only main on the specials
board. It’s ‘brill’,
and I’m using the
inverted commas there to denote that that’s the
name of the fish species, rather than a description
of its quality, which will come later in this review.
It comes with clams, mussels and samphire, three
of my favourite edible things. And new potatoes.
The Salt Room opened in February, in the space
where the Metropole used to house their rather
lame ‘Bar 106’. It’s been given a big makeover, with
all the requisites for a slick two-thousand-andteens
eatery: exposed brickwork, wooden cladding
(with paint splashes), pendant LED lights. It’s the
sister restaurant to the Coal Shed, majoring on
fish, and offers a fine view of the sea, if you manage
to get a table on the upper mezzanine.
We don’t get a table on the upper mezzanine.
When we sit down, as a matter of fact, we’re the
only people down below, which is no hardship,
but which does cause a good deal of table-position
envy in the first five minutes of our visit.
As I’m doing a review (incognito as ever) I decide
not, like my two companions, to go for the lunchtime
deal, which offers two courses for £12.95. I
decide to ignore the à la carte menu, as well, opting
to go for everything on the blackboard: there’s
‘potted dressed handpicked
crab’ (I think
that’s the right adjective
order) as a starter, at £8.
The brill costs £18.
The crab ensemble is
significantly bigger than
the portions my two
companions get, and is
served on an asymmetrical
platter, in a jam
jar, smothered in clotted
egg yolk, inverse-speared by a stem of asparagus.
It’s accompanied by a thin-cut salad of some sort,
and two crisp breads. For once I don’t finish first,
and am able to pass round the jar. It’s good dressed
crab: everyone says ‘yum’.
The arrival of the brill is quite a moment. It turns
out to be a vast brown-skinned flatfish, which fills
a large oval plate, the circumference of which is
garnished with the extras. It’s not the most photogenic
of meals I’ve had – I have to be careful with
the angle of my camera – but it’s certainly one of
the more memorable. The fish is meatier than I’d
expect: its flesh slides happily off its bones; its roe
is stupendous. Flipping it over, halfway through,
with a fish knife, provides my friends with quite a
spectacle.
We’ve been drinking a fine £19 Sauvignon Blanc;
we sensibly opt out of a second bottle, but when
we see espresso Martinis on the ‘afters’ menu, we
can’t resist. These, too, are exquisite. Knowing that
a second would put paid to any notion of work in
the afternoon, we pay the bill, and head, happy,
into spring outside. Alex Leith
106 Kings Road, 01273 929488
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