Ask me what’s my favourite food and I’ll give you one answer: salmon.
I loved it in every form: smoked salmon, grilled salmon, salmon gravlax, salmon sashimi, salmon sushi, even tinned salmon.In fact when / if I go to heaven there will be a whole restaurant dedicated to salmon in all its forms…And then as if someone read my mind…I heard a new salmon restaurant called Salmontini (originally started in the Middle East) was launching. And it was opening in Belgravia…which is basically where I live. Clearly the food gods were smiling on me 🙂
I followed their progress on social media eagerly awaiting the opening, and booked a table for two on the official opening day. My blogger buddy Catherine attended a preview just before the official launch and whetted my appetite with her fabulous photos.
And when the day dawned I headed on down to the restaurant’s Pont Street location with a very excited spring in my step.
I’ve recently been on a bit of a mission to tell you about the restaurants that my local area of SW1 has to offer and it’s great to add a new one to my list that has so far included No.11 Pimlico Road, UNI, Olivomare, Petrus and Ametsa with Arzak Instruction.
And here’s my smiling companion, fellow luxury lifestyle blogger, Caroline from Cocktails and Caroline.
A love of food often goes hand and hand with an interest in nutrition and I have been following Caroline’s healthy lifestyle change with interest. She’s been following a ketosis diet, which involves eating a limited amount of carbohydrates, but lots of healthy fats and protein. By eating like this the body is trained to use fat for energy rather than carbohydrates so that you lose weight. Caroline was the perfect partner for this lunch as salmon really is a super food for this find of diet being both high in protein and healthy fats. Though I don’t follow a ketosis diet, I often snack on salmon as I find it a great filler for the afternoon slump!
Caroline recently started up a new Instagram account to record her progress on the diet which includes lots of mouth watering meals, many of which have smoked salmon as the main protein. You can follow her progress on her Instagram @ketocaz and also get lots of ideas of what to eat on a low carb diet. She’s certainly looking fab, losing inches and has amazing skin.
Caroline informed me champagne is actually low in carbs, how fortunate! So we ordered a bottle to accompany our salmon feast.
As I’m not on a low carb diet… I helped myself to my other favourite food while we checked out the menu.
The menu really lived up to my expectations, highlighting salmon in all it’s forms… there was also a whole sashimi and sushi menu and regular readers will know that’s my favourite cuisine. Obviously a menu including so many favourites made it difficult to choose but fortunately Caroline was up for sharing.
I’d already decided that I was going to stick to only eating salmon as that was the speciality. To be honest with you, this is something I regularly do anyway and I often get slightly strange looks when I order salmon for starter and for main course. But this has got nothing on my rather eccentric father who once ordered chicken soup for starter, main AND dessert. But there are plenty of other options, fish alternatives such as sea bass and black cod and also a selection of meat and grills.
Our choices were:
Crispy salmon salad which had a delicious crunch of rice crispies on top.
Salmon tartare, was deliciously spicy with a fresh grapefruit accompaniment.
And a mix of salmon and yellowtail sashimi was gorgeous and fresh. Everything was so perfectly light but I loved the silky, almost creamy taste of salmon. I used the thesaurus to think of a better word to describe it than ‘fatty’ which doesn’t sound pleasant but neither does ‘lardy’, ‘oily’ ‘lardaeous’ or ‘blubbery’. Anyway, you get the point…it was fatty in a good way.
Here I am, the cat who got the cream…surrounded by all my favourite foods.
And for main course…
Salmon stuffed with ricotta and served with chive sauce was perfect for Caroline’s ketogenic diet.
And for me? Clearly only one thing would do…
The waiter could sense my indecision as everything looked so good and he suggested I had a split portion of sushi so that I could try two different types. The classic spicy salmon roll was perfect, of course. My other choice was a little risky: the volcano roll contained apple, mango, cucumber and spicy mixed fish. I usually don’t like mixing fruit with savoury but this was totally fantastic and I loved the crunch of the apple against the soft fish. I really was in my own personal food heaven…
…and it was great to share with a fellow foodie.
As you can tell I totally loved Salmontini and there were absolutely no disappointments for a salmon connoisseur such as myself ;). Trust me, I will be back…I plan to try the whole menu.
What’s your personal foodie heaven?
Salmontini Le Resto
1 Pont Street
London
SW1X 9EJ
020 7118 1999
