If you’re looking for posh fish and chips, Salt and Malt down at Wapping Wharf in Bristol is always a good shout. But how many of you knew that their shipping container restaurant takeaway is actually the sibling of a bigger place just outside of the city on the banks of the Chew Valley Lake?
We jumped in the car last week and headed out there on a sunny post-work treat and as tempted as we were by their traditional fish and chips, we opted to try their new Tuesday tapas deal.
Owned by Josh Eggleton, local food hero and Michelin starred chef, we knew that the provenance and quality of their ingredients would be second to none, but we weren’t expecting it to be quite so good. I mean, it’s a fish and chip restaurant, serving tapas right?
The tapas menu runs on a Tuesday evening and costs £10 for three items with a couple of small supplements on certain things. We went for six dishes and a portion of chips, which was plenty of food. Everything came out as and when it was ready, giving the meal a relaxed, Mediterranean feel.
What did we eat?
- Half shell grilled scallop with garlic, lemon and herb crumb
- Curried buttered brown shrimp on toasted sourdough
- Crispy cod cheek with a chorizo mayonnaise
- Asparagus with hollandaise
- Rock oyster with vinegar and shallot (we ordered two of these!)
- Brown crab claw with aioli.
We loved the curried shrimp. Such a simple dish done incredibly well. The sourdough was perfection – soft and chewy on the inside with a good toasted crust on the outside. I could have easily eaten two or three of these.
Neither of us had eaten a crab claw before but once we got the hang of picking the meat out (a surprising amount), we were scrabbling over the last few strands of meat. It was fresh and tasty and despite being served plain and just with a sauce, we loved it and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Probably my favourite dish though was the crispy cod cheek was meaty and perfectly cooked. We were amazed at the size too – I’d love to have seen the fish! The chorizo mayonnaise was really great too and actually, we found we were dunking everything into it – chips, cod cheek, asparagus you name it.
Salt and Malt clearly do sauces well too because we loved every-one we tried, including the cooking liquid on the scallop shell which, if I’d have been in private, was drink-worthly.
As you probably know by now, whenever Dave joins me for dinner, he will ALWAYS leave room for dessert. He opted for this pannacotta with strawberries and hazelnut crumb. Sadly, it didn’t impress as much as the seafood and although it was tasty, the texture wasn’t right, firm (with a skin) on top and way too liquidy underneath. It felt like it’d been made the day before and left in the fridge.
Dessert aside, this was a great dining experience. The thing I loved most about the tapas at Salt and Malt was that it came with a bowl of chip-shop style chips. Eating decadent seafood like scallops and crab claw alongside them made me feel naughty – like we were breaking the rules. We’re in Chew Valley next week so who knows, I might just break them again!