Please note, Smoke and Salt Angel is now closed. The restaurant has now moved to a permanent space in Brixton. Time Out Food editors, March 2018.
Originally run as a series of supper clubs, Smoke & Salt comes from a couple of young ex-chefs keen to show off their skills (they met working at The Shed in Notting Hill). Bread rolls were a couple of just-baked soft pretzels (more like fat knotted buns), petit fours a pair of unimpeachable still-warm madeleines. These boys can certainly bake. Another highlight was a main course of lamb, teaming pink slices of meat with a juicy, herby faggot, plus veg in the form of a faintly sweet roasted Jerusalem artichoke. All with plenty of cheffy swirls: a jus, a purée and so on. And you can’t fault the ‘fun factor’ of a still-in-its-shell coddled egg (with a broth of burnt spring onions) that you get to crack at the table. But not everything works. Some ingredients are at odds with the fine dining style (sliced biltong or spiced popcorn for finger snacking, cubes of dull, dense pound cake in an otherwise elegant pudding), while cocktails were forgettable.
Equally, while the setting is lovably dated – a mix of deliberately retro and plain old been-like-it-for-years – the £38-a-head price tag (excluding drinks and service) has more than kept up with inflation. Still, if you’ve got deep pockets and are after a warm welcome, this might just fit the (large) bill.