Salt

I’ve been to Salt on Preston on a few occasions now, once for dinner and twice for lunch. Each time I’ve left disappointed. The service is spotty at best, the food mediocre. My last visit was for lunch on a Thursday. There were exactly two customers in the dining room, my friend and I. While we were served our pasta special remarkably fast, it arrived only lukewarm («how could that be?», I thought). And then our server seemingly forgot about us. I believe Salt needs to step up its game if it wants to survive in a location where several previous restaurants have failed in just a few years. Expensive décor, and prices to match, isn’t everything.

I came here for an engagement party and was seated in the outdoor lounge. The ambiance was amazing and there was live music.
I ordered a Pimms Cup that came out in a martini glass diluted and watery, you could not taste the alcohol.
We ordered several small plates including steak, tartare, and charcuterie and the food was underwhelming.
Although service was good and they brought out a complimentary dessert for the bride to be, the food left nothing to be desired.

Came here with a group of 5 to end our Saturday night adventures. Sat outdoors at the «community table», where other parties can join you. They encourage this so that you can meet friends. Although it was a tad awkward watching other people sitting at the community table on intimate dates, it is a nice idea. There was a fire going at the community table as well which was relaxing and set the mood.
We only had drinks, which are pricey but really good. I did take a look at the dinner menu and everything looked amazing. I will have to come back for food.
I did happen to check out the inside of the restaurant and it was beautiful-​perfect for an intimate date night.
Will be back to try the food with an update :)

A dash of salt with your meal? SALT certainly made our group dinner a memorable one. Fantastic selection of starters, and mains to «meat» all your meat food groups. Think of the starters as smaller portions of higher quality or uncommon ingredients, such as tuna crudo or the octopus or the bone marrow. They are not so much apps but dishes that are meant to be enjoyed in smaller plate portions. The mains had the best selection of meat assortments (and there were some vegetable risottos and salads for vegetarians). Ducks, rabbit, steak, halibut… enough variety to cover the meat groups without an extensive and long menu. I enjoy menus that are one pagers because they tend to be well made due to répétions, sourcing of seasonal foods and are changed frequently. BEST octopus I’ve had so far. Having tried an octopus and supply and demand and town, my preference is in the cooking of the octopus. Whereas the other places char the octopus leaving some grill marks and blackened edges, Salt cooks it cleaner leaving no char marks or the smoky flavour. This dish with the squid ink vingarette really brought out the natural flavours and textures of the tentacle without masking the look or the taste. Absolutely loved it! The desserts were slightly expensive, around 10 $ per dish. Beautiful presentation in the Pavlova and a nice tartness to the finish of the sorbet. It complimented the heaviness of the meat and refreshed the palette.

We had our WoW Ottawa event there last night. What a beautiful venue and great staff! We had some lovely cheese and charcuterie platters and delicious martinis. We will definitely have another networking event there soon!

Salt stands for Sustainable Abundant Local Taste. And I was glad to find out where the food I was eating was coming from. The food delivery is almost daily; the restaurant doesn’t even own a freezer! The food was very good. I adored the liver mousse appetizer!

The Good: What can I say about Salt… Love the décor, the service was great and the wait staff attentive (I’ve never gotten a drink faster in my entire life).
The Bad: Even though, as a party of 12 WITH a reservation (and the restaurant didn’t appear that busy that night), it took forever for us to get our table… that ended up being at the front of the restaurant by the front door on a cold winter’s night. With that said, we were well taken care of while waiting.
All of the above is pretty easily forgiven, I mean the restaurant has a great reputation. The reason for the 3 stars is that the main thing you look for in a restaurant, obviously, is the food. I ordered the filet, it wasn’t over-​priced for filet with foie (about $ 40) so maybe my expectations should’ve been managed. I’ve had filet before where it just melted in my mouth; the filet at Salt… let’s just say that it didn’t. The meat was so chewy the knife they provided couldn’t even cut it properly and reminded me more of filet that I’ve had at Vegas buffets.
Overall: Salt, great to look at, great service, the food just has to be able to back up the rest of the venue. Sorry Salt, I tried to like you.

My husband and I went there for dinner and it was perfect. We had wonderful service being that it was our first time there. We were not sure what to order but the waitress was great and all her suggestions were perfect. From the wine down to the wonderful dessert.
Their presentation was equally beautiful. I had a foodgasm with every bite I took. And my husband felt the same way too. They are worth every cent.
We had a wonderful evening at Salt!

It was our first time at salt and I really like the fact we can get our parking validated. This was offered to us as soon as we entered which is really nice. However once we sat down at our table it took a while for our server to come. Once we ordered everything we still haven’t even been offered any water while we waited for our food to arrive. I would estimate that about fifteen or more minutes passed after we sat down and still haven’t at least been offered water. We eventually had to flag down someone (not our server) since we couldn’t locate her, and ask for water while we waited for our drinks (Paloma and Salt Maple Tea) to be made.
The dining room is elegant and nicely done, but as I read online before coming, its a little on the dark side for me to appreciate the nice plating done by the chef. Each of the dishes were nicely presented and plated except for the cheese plate. And at 22 for four small pieces of cheese, it was underwhelming for me, given our waitress couldn’t even tell us what cheeses were on the board. At least the waitress should know what she’s presenting to us before bringing it, I haven’t had a plate of cheese presented so lack luster and having the presenter lack almost any knowledge of what’s on that plate. We almost always order cheese boards at new restaurants we try. The cheeses themselves were quite tasty, normally blue is not up my alley but I loved the blue that came. Lots of flavours but not overwhelming, delicious. We had also the sea bass sashimi, excellent dish. The mains we ordered are scallops and pork belly, and duck three ways. Some minor complains about each dish and some compliments as well. The scallops were delicious and tender, but the pork belly was way too fat, we didn’t touch it almost at all. The gnocchi is meh and my boyfriend didn’t eat any of them. The duck three ways left us wondering what the third way was and this is another lack from our waitress. She should have introduced the dish to us better. We again had to flag down another waiter to ask. Loved the butternut squash purée, went excellent with the breast. However the duck breast was not as tender as I had in some places. But I liked the sear on the end piece and the carrots were caramelized nicely. The two dishes were a tad on the heavy oily side however and we couldn’t finish some of our plate. The two desserts we ordered were tiramisu and lemon aerated sponge cake which I read rave reviews on. The desserts definitely didn’t disappoint. Delicious and pure joy on the palate and the eyes if I could only see it better with better lighting. Oh and there’s no menu for the dessert, and our waitress called the aerated cake the lemon sponge cake which nearly confused me into not ordering it since I heard a lot about this aerated cake before I came. Also no prices were offered so when the bill came, I had no idea how much the total would be. Desserts surprised me being so high. Around 13 is a tad too much. Coming to a restaurant around this style I expect to pay quite a bit but after tips the bill was close to 200 but I feel I could have had a much better meal else where paying just a little more (Atelier comes to mind) or just as good if not better at other places such as town, Allium etc at a slightly lower price. Mostly I feel let down by the service at a restaurant that charges these prices, the atmosphere certainly matches. The service is not from a lack of courtesy from our waitress but lack of attention to our needs and lack of knowledge about our food in general. I suspect we will not return again in the near future.

Absolutely one of the best in Ottawa! Great service, perfectly cooked steak. Need to visit for people looking for a good meal in a great area!

Came to Salt tonight for a holiday get together and was treated with the utmost care and attention. I have my leg in a cast at the moment and am on crutches, and they did everything they could and MORE to make sure my experience was both safe as possible as well as completely enjoyable. The food was outstanding; I had the short ribs, a butternut squash veloute, and a very fancy involved spongecake based dessert. A special thanks to tonight’s crew, including chefs, sommelier, the waiters (thanks for extra candied fennel!), and the marvelous owner himself, who came out to make sure my dining experience was a good one.

Love the food and service here.
Everyone is jolly, from the server, the hostess and the manager.
Food is very good, although we felt the fall apple salad appetizer was super expensive ($ 14 for some apples, arugula and two slices of pork belly).
They were very generous with the lobster in the lobster spaghetti.
The Sablefish in lobster bisque was brilliant !
The seabass sashimi was a bit of a let down, it was a unique concept but the seabass had no taste to it.

Ok I like to consider my self a bit of a foodie and this place was actually the best restaurant I have ever been to. It was a random whim that me and the girlfriend, who both have worked in the restaurant industry for years, wanted to try something different and we both were happily surprised. The service was amazing and was seated even without a reservation which I’m shocked about. The server actually was able to recommend the bottle of Kung fu girl Riesling. ($ 55) to us which both enjoyed at the inflated price. We didn’t order an appetizer but we’re still given a quick sampling from the chef. We shared the Arctic char and the new addition to the menu the 4 different cuts of pork. The Arctic char was cooked to perfection with 3 salmon medallions with crispy smoky bacon wrapped around them served with veg and sprouts. The 4 cuts of pork included cheek, belly, tail and tenderloin. All of which had its own separate taste and texture. It also came with spouts as a garnish and a stuffing. We then concluded the meal with a crème brûlée with peanut butter whip dessert which the girlfriend enjoyed more then me but was still very satisfied by. The whole meal with a generous 20% tip was set back roughly $ 170. If visiting Ottawa or are from here it may be out of the way but check out this gem in little Italy, trust me you will not be disappointed.

Heard great reviews of this place and finally tried it for a 50^th birthday celebration. Beautiful and elegant atmosphere! Great service. We shared the spaghetti lobster which is a main dish as an appetizer which was very good. I had the sort ribs served with onion rings. The ribs were excellent, but onion rings are much better at Harvey’s. Rice or potatoes would have been a sensible side dish. My friends enjoyed the Steak and fries. I will make it back there during the wkend to enjoy the piano bar.

I think that this place has a long way to go. I loved the atmosphere, and feel a place like this with it’s décor and ambience wise is a welcome addition to Ottawa. However, I found it pretty overpriced and underwhelming for what we got. It was an extra five dollars for a side to my steak, which is fine but the portion was about one mouthful. I ordered my steak medium and it came out pretty rare in my opinion (photo added). Our waiter was also pretty inattentive, I found we spent a lot of time flagging him down. We ordered a cheese plate and we weren’t able to pick which cheeses and he never told us what we were getting, our fault for not asking maybe. That being said, they are new so maybe they need to work out the kinks, and the waiter mentioned that it was a recently switched up menu. I won’t be rushing back any time soon, but I wouldn’t say that I will never be back. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t worth the $ 150 dollar price tag I left with. Overall pretty disappointing food wise, IMO.

Have now been twice, they are two for two. Nice comfy chairs, delicious food, great service, fun music selection as backdrop. Had the scallop crudo, tuna tataki, and the lobster spaghetti. All worth a return trip.
Especially on a chilly evening when you want a warm comfortable atmosphere, Salt is worth a try. :)

A super addition to Little Italy. I hated to leave, and I can’t wait to return! To be clear, this is more of a 4.5 (which I’ll explain later), and I hope to bump it up to a solid five on my next visit. What makes this all the more remarkable is that I was under the weather on my visit, and it was still almost perfect.
My sister and I strolled in on a Saturday around noon for lunch, and I was immediately taken with the beauty of this place. All chandeliers and high wingback satin chairs, it is positively divinely decorated. Wrought iron vines, a piano lounge and round tables make it elegant, but not stuffy. We chose to sit in a booth (which may have been THE most comfortable booth ever in existence), and were warmly welcomed by our server Chris. He was attentive and charming and did a great job with recommendations.
My sister opted for the eggs benny, as she was still feeling quite «breakfasty» and I went for the pulled pork. My dish was beautifully presented with a silver cone of shoestring fries, salad and my pulled pork on a potato roll. Beware, the portions here are normal people sized, not chain restaurant sized. I did eat every morsel on my plate, as did my sister, and we were totally satisfied, but not overly stuffed.
I absolutely ADORED my side salad, and almost wished I had gotten that as my full meal. The fries were also well done, and my potato roll was excellent, but I was a bit disappointed by the pulled pork. While the meat was cooked to the perfect tenderness, I just didn’t find the sauce had enough flavor for me. I like a saucy pulled pork with a punch of flavor! But, as I mentioned, everything else was perfect, so I will for sure return (with anticipation!).
One more note: the bathroom here are beautiful. I know it seems like a silly comment, but trust me: check them out. Each stall is it’s own private room, and there is a basket of hand towels which is such a nice touch, along with lovely paintings and other pretty décor. I easily could have spent several minutes touching up my makeup in there!
Overall, this is a lovely spot, especially for a special occasion or date night. It’s elegant without feeling pretentious, and the menu is extremely well done.