Salon, restaurant review: All hail this second coming

Salon's new set menu is distinctive yet well-balanced, carefully thought-through and expertly executed, writes David Sexton
Hipster haven: Salon in Brixton
Daniel Hambury
David Sexton20 November 2017

Fay Maschler, my mentor on these pages, was severe on Salon when it opened in 2013, criticising the no-choice menu, the hipster approach and the delivery, rating it only two stars.

Salon started as a pop-up, has progressed steadily and, after a brief closure, has just re-opened this month in expanded form. There’s an appealing new bar downstairs and the space liberated upstairs has been pleasantly re-designed by architect Henry Harker and bespoke furnisher Finch Munro.

The room is painted greeny blue, there are neatly separated Fifties-style chairs and tables, and a rough timber banquette around the room. The crockery and cutlery is upgraded too (no more Duralex glasses for wine) and the service, from founder and head chef Nicholas Balfe, and his team, led by Matt Bushnell and general manager Mark Gurney, is attentive. When they saw that Katie’s back wasn’t liking the banquette, they swiftly borrowed a cushion from next door: we were touched.

As Fay noted, set menus are not just an obvious boon, financially and organisationally, to any restaurateur, they also appeal to those restaurant-goers who follow chefs closely, idolise them even, and want to experience their concept of how a meal should be as fully as possible by putting themselves wholly into their hands. It’s an entirely different idea from just going out to eat what you yourself fancy on the night.

There was a consistent palate here that felt very autumnal, and genuinely in touch with climate and place

When it goes wrong it can be a nightmare, like being stuck watching a hideously protracted bad play that you can’t leave and have actually to ingest. At Salon it all went right. The meal was altogether a pleasure, quite distinctive yet well-balanced, carefully thought-through and expertly executed.

There’s a strong sustainability and local-sourcing ethic here that we were introduced to via a modest amuse-bouche — a slightly roasted half of cherry tomato, scattered with thyme leaves, sitting on a little curd, and a basil leaf atop a brittle cracker, made by recycling some sourdough bread into a porridge and rebaking, we were told.

This tiny mouthful, served on crumpled brown paper as well as a plate, came with a full story about how the tomato was surplus from a nearby allotment, and so forth. Nice, though.

Remarkably good: mackerel, elderberries and horseradish
Daniel Hambury

The first course, “mackerel, elderberries, horseradish”, both looked and tasted remarkably good — the fresh line-caught mackerel from Dorset, as we were assured it was, converted into three fillets that had been quickly marinated then heated with a blowtorch, sitting in a pink berry juice, bedecked with caramelised wild elderberries, a few green leaves and a blob of mild, creamy horseradish sauce. The wine, made from the musky Penedès grape variety xarel-lo, by the biodynamic Celler Credo, fitted this autumnal, wild-tasting dish perfectly.

“Coco beans, girolles, Berkswell” — the names of the dishes are minimalist to the point of mystery — was also original and delicious. This Brêton bean (coco de Paimpol) cooks to an extraordinarily creamy, unctuous texture unlike any other, seeming here almost like an alternative form of superlative gnocchi, rather than a bean at all.

They were sitting in a herby green jus, not overpowered by the cheese, topped with Scottish girolles, some sautéed, others sweetly pickled in wine and bay leaf, pickling being a thing here.

Again, there was a terrific accompanying wine, a Toscana IGT, “Prunecchio”, from Fattoria di Sammontana, mainly sauvignon blanc but with a little malvasia and trebbiano too, fresh yet aromatic, lovingly made (only 6,000 bottles a year).

Perhaps a little odd: Creedy Carver duck served rare with pickled blackberries, watercress and weetcorn
Daniel Hambury

The vegetarian main was fleshy king oyster mushroom served with a form of spelt risotto enlivened with tamari, some barely wilted but rather salty rainbow chard leaves and a much reduced, strong-flavoured “mushroom ketchup”, a bit like a home-made Daddies sauce, good for daubing on the slightly alienating big mushroom chunks, for some of that mushroom-on-mushroom action.

Alternatively (£6 supplement) there was a slice of Creedy Carver duck breast, served rare, with watercress, pickled blackberries and, a little oddly, sweetcorn treated in several ways, puréed, char-grilled and deep-fried, for contrasting textures, although some of us, including the French, continue to look askance on sweetcorn as a vegetable for human consumption.

There was such a consistent palate here — pickles, that sour-sweet combination, berries, mushrooms, leaves — that felt very autumnal, genuinely in touch with climate and place

Again, the wines were sumptuous (although under-described on the wine list): a massive, concentrated 15 per cent abv biodynamic Primitivo, from Fatalone in Puglia, and one of the best Chilean reds I have tasted, Cinsault/Pais, made by Rogue Vine, from dry bush farmed vines in the small vineyards of the Itata Valley, 400km south of Santiago, £45.50 a bottle here and well worth it, presumably secondarily sourced from nearby Indigo Wines.

For pudding there was a full bowl of fruitiness — a blueberry sorbet with sour cream, toasted almonds amounting almost to a granola, and a curio, a dark green oil lurking at the bottom, made with macerated “Brixton fig leaf”, as green a taste as you will find.

David Sexton's week in food

Bavette alla granseola — spaghetti-like pasta with spider crab — for a last lunch on the Lido before leaving the Venice Film Festival last week, at soothing beachside Da Graziano, one of the few restaurants not attached to a care home where the average customer age is a generation older than me, still.  

Pizza galore last week at my other favourite Lido pitstop, Pizzeria Stella on the Granviale S.M. Elisabetta, much favoured by locals, many still in uniform. I have yet to try the pizza with horse, though. Next time.

Lovely cicchetti — baccalà, battered courgette flowers, with a glass of Lugana, not Spritz — at Osteria Al Mercá, where Lido parents bring their babies, nearly all favouring neat little Baby Zen Yoyo buggies, not London’s SUV monsters. 

Back at Northcliffe House, home to the Standard and Mail, a new caterer, Gather & Gather, is trying desperately to be on trend. For Monday breakfast, surreally, there was avocado on toast, dusted not only with chorizo but, heaven help us, “pepperdew”.

The third branch of French boulangerie/patisserie Orée has just opened on Kensington High Street. Artisanal, gluten-free, all that. For lunch on Monday, a chicken sandwich, a tomato soup and a cheese toastie, plus a bottle of water (£5 plus service) totalled £26.29 for two. For ladies who lunch and think Le Pain Quotidien is too cheap.

The actual figs in the dish — small, black-skinned, red-fleshed and sweet — came from Provence, Balfe admitted, adding hopefully that that was quite near, really. Served with this was Kingston Black Apple Aperitif from Somerset, an appley version of Pineau des Charentes, made by mixing apple brandy with fresh apple juice at 18 per cent abv, fruitiness in a glass.

So here was a meal that had been perfectly planned. Portion sizes always seemed generous but didn’t leave us prostrated. There was such a consistent palate here — pickles, that sour-sweet combination, berries, mushrooms, leaves — that felt very autumnal, genuinely in touch with climate and place, not just the usual restaurant suppliers. At this price, it’s a bargain.

Salon is hipsterish, for sure, perhaps best absorbed as part of the overall experience. There were fey, ghostly bouquets of faded eucalyptus and dried-out gypsohilia; shirts were worn buttoned up to the neck and I suddenly realised, like an H M Bateman cartoon, I was the only man in the room who had failed to grow a beard, yet dared to intrude.

That’s London localism for you. Not always so diverse after all. Measured by the yard.

18 Market Row, SW9 (020 7501 9152, info@salonbrixton.co.uk). Tues-Fri Noon -3.00pm & 6.00pm-11.30pm, Sat 10.00am-3.00pm & 6.00pm-11.30pm, Sun 10.00am-3.00pm, closed Mon. Four-course set menu £33 per head, accompanying wine £25. About £120-£140 for two.

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