Have you ever heard of a “salt, food and wine pairing”? The concept was entirely new to us until we were introduced to SALT at Waterford Estate, one of the restaurants falling under The Salt Road brand.
The Salt Road is a culinary concept that showcases global cuisine inspired by salting techniques at venues around South Africa and, coming soon, around the world. Their premium offering is a personal, delicious and informative experience, the first of its kind in pairing salt, wine and food.
The Salt Road provides a link between the history of salt, the incredible mineral, and the refined culture we enjoy today. SALT focuses on the science and history of salt; their food is often described as the alchemy between salt and food – prepared from the salt first, and entirely from first principles.
Every table at SALT has a selection of three unique salts: Baleni Salt; a sacred river salt harvested through an ancient weave-basket method; Black lava salt; sourced from Iceland; and Red clay salt from Hawaii.
The meals served at SALT contain produce locally sourced from farmers and suppliers in the area and the SALT kitchen believes in back-to-roots cooking, meaning, cooking from first principles with seasonal produce, and focusing on preservation techniques for food storage.
But what is it about humble salt that drove two renowned chefs, Craig Cormack and Beau du Toit, to conceptualise this unique dining experience?
We caught up with Craig and Beau, who shared some insights into the SALT journey.
1. Why “salt”? What is it about this humble ingredient that inspired you to pair salt, food and wine?
“Well I have always been big on wine and food pairings, when the opportunity to do something different presented itself, I played around, this created much excitement utilising age old dishes inspired by preservation, using 3 salts, salting techniques and 3 wines, and as they say the rest is history.”
2. The average person might think salt is salt, and all salts are created equal. Are there different varieties of salt available? Do they taste different?
“Nope, not all salts are created equal. I look at salt as commercial or table salt vs naturally-occurring salts, they vary in colour, a little in taste, but predominantly it’s the quality of the amazingness of terroir, or appellation, product coming from source.”
3. What separates a good salt from a great salt?
“Natural salts taken from source, not human intervention. They should be classified into refined and unrefined salts.”
4. Pairing food and wine with salt is an interesting concept. What type of dishes can visitors to SALT at Waterford expect?
“Sjoe, we change our menu every 2 weeks, keeping ourselves and our staff on their toes, helping us create incredible combinations utilizing salting techniques, like pickling, curing, smoking and fermenting applications. Our dishes cover all cultures of the world, all flavours, creating a very diverse cross section of known and unknown dishes.”
5. Salt-pairing seems to be new in SA, but is salting techniques is a common practice in other countries?
“Salt is completely an unknown offering globally, but so prevalent in our day-to-day that we don’t even realise or understand the concept. It’s by a process of education, which is where we come in.”
6. Could you elaborate on some “salting techniques”? Many people might only think to sprinkle some salt over their food before they consume it, and don’t realise that there are various interesting ways of cooking with it and eating it.
“I touched on some of those techniques above, they are amazing and bring great pleasure in foods we eat everyday, like biltong, smoked and cured meats, cheese, sauerkraut, the making of beer and wine preparation, etc.”
Sound like something you would be interested in? Visit the Waterford Estate website here to make a booking.
