SALT

To me the idea of opening a trendy, boutique restaurant nestled between several blocks of row homes in Butcher's Hill seems odd... then again if I lived there, I would probably think it was pretty cool. SALT (I'm pretty sure they don't spell it with all caps, but I'm going to because I don't want to confuse myself later when reading and wonder why I keep talking about sodium chloride) has been around for a few years, but it seems only within the last year that I heard of it, and even then it became synonymous with places like Pazo, where I have also never been due to it's "fancy" reputation. I'm only 27 after all and haven't fully embraced the idea of fine dining yet, so this journey to SALT was a culinary coming of age journey.

My partner had made us last minute reservations and from what she said, the restaurant was easily persuaded to shuffle us into their otherwise packed Friday night date book. When we got there, we were ushered in like pseudo-royalty, too (by this I mean that the maître d’ opened the door for us, personally "checked" our coats and then gave us a choice of where to sit... obviously I'm not very used to good service). Our waitress might have been the best part of the dining experience though, she was extremely helpful and interested in helping us with the menu as well as persuading me to try duck for the first time. Also she had a mega cute lisp and I thought of asking her to record my outgoing voice mail message, haha. The only thing I can fault her for was the tardy delivery of our free bread, but whatever.

As I mentioned, I got their duck special which consisted of tenderloin, confit, gouda orzo and topped with a cherry balsamic reduction. I'm a big douche and never order meat less than well-done, so I was a little afraid to eat all of the tenderloin because it was, you know... cooked how it's supposed to be. It was good though, and not oily or anything like I had heard duck can be. The real boner-maker on the plate was the duck confit though. It was like the best bacon/Smithfield ham I've ever had times ten. People should be "confit-ing" more meat, like all the time. Also, the portions were pretty much perfect as I was able to take down the entire plate and not feel bloated and gross. We got some chocolate-fudge cake with lavender(?) ice cream too, which was pretty epic.

All in all, SALT pretty much lived up to the hype that I had been hearing about it and was one of the more memorable meals I have in Baltimore. So if you've got a c-note burning a hole in your pocket and want to have a sexy-food dinner date, go make a reservation here. If the duck isn't on the menu, go ahead and order a plate of the duck-fat french fries, apparently they are pretty tasty, too.

salt
2127 E. Pratt Street
Baltimore, MD 21231
410-276-5480

Open Monday - Saturday at 5 P.M.

Reservations
Taken for parties of 2-8