John Salt - Gastro Pub in Islington - 18 April 2013

Finally managed to have dinner together with my lovely colleague Kellie after numerous date changes due to holidays, work, diets and just life in general :-) We went to John Salt, a new-ish and very nice gastro pub on Upper street in Angel. They have a small dining room upstairs.. quite a communal feel since the tables are very close together so not the best for a private conversation but great if you are nosy like me :-)

I had heard great things about the food so expectations were quite high..but i am afraid i came away slightly underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, nothing was overy wrong, it just didn't excite me as much as i thought it would.

So, we started with "Burnt leeks, parmesan, egg yolk and truffle vinaigrette" which was light and airy and quite enjoyable but it needed some sort of crunch since everything was just so.. soft. I also couldn't really taste or smell any truffle. 

The second starter was a rather tasty grilled scallop (2) in its shell with ponzu and peanuts. Very tasty.

For mains we decided on the "Green chili Poussin" which came with a sweet and sticky sauce and some green chilis. It was perfectly nice. We also had "Mackerel, BBQ'd fennel, lime, mint" which was the weak spot. Rather limp mackerel on a watery and rather firm fennel with no real hit of mint and lime. Both the fennel and the mackerel would have benefited from a closer encounter with the BBQ ;-)

 



 

Desserts - We had a lovely and fresh dessert with segmented grapefruit in caramelized sugar and a creme fraiche sorbet with a sprinkle of nuts, absolutely perfect and my favorite dish of the evening. The second dessert (and Kellie's preferred choice) was an earl grey mousse with an orange marmelade and grated chocolate.

We kept a close eye on our neighbours table and saw some other interesting dishes which means that a return visit perhaps could happen. I am still keen to try the steak with the kimchi hollandaise! I think the food at John Salt is inspired and anything but boring.