Grace Dent reviews Salon: Wonderful things are happening in SW9

Our restaurant critic reignites her love affair with Brixton
Southern belle: Brixton's newly re-opened Salon comes up trumps
Grace Dent26 October 2017

Ambience 4/5

Food 4/5

If Brixton were a lover, he would think I’d ghosted him.

I began ignoring SW9 about six months ago. Brixton didn’t do anything wrong; it was me. I had better offers. And during my absence I also heard chat that the place is changing for the worse anyway. Re-gentrified out of all recognition, apparently; its soul scrubbed clean. Having returned last week, I’m not sure I buy that. Yes, the past five years have seen shifts in demographic, plus attempts to make the postcode shinier, but Brixton Village, for example, the covered arcade that is home to a dozen small restaurants and shops, is still far from tediously sanitised. It’s still higgledy-piggledy and in places it’s still whiffy.

And then there’s the growing buzz about Salon; small, independent, a little tatty and a lot ostentatious, offering brunch menus with home-smoked salmon on rye soda bread with duck egg, greens and sriracha hollandaise. I’d also seen photos of three-cheese cornbread and a vivid shakshuka. Promises of things like this got me on the Victoria line. Because if three-cheese cornbread doesn’t make you a bit smiley-with-heart-eyes emoji, I don’t think we can be friends.

Salon opened in 2012 but closed recently for refurbishment and a re-ponder. This was a notion I rather loved. All people and places should be permitted second acts. Or third and fourth ones.

All-new Salon, I’d heard, would have more space for pickling, preserving, butchery, syrup-making and all the things the team loves to do. There would be room for a wine shop and a womb-like bar on the ground floor. I liked chef Nicholas Balfe’s vow to make the place, yes, a little more complex in menu and wine list, but not any more formal. Praise be for that. Dinners at no-faff places like Salon are pure joy for me. I love anywhere I can turn up early, confess I’ve misjudged my timings, read the Evening Standard for half an hour with my heels off drinking glasses of Xarel-lo Miranius.

Salon’s ‘nduja croquettes are certainly one of the nicest things I’ve eaten in 2017. They pack substance, crispness, heat and sweetness and arrive on a dewy aioli puddle. They’re served in the bar and in the upstairs restaurant, same as the excellent house-made soda and foccacia breads with whey butter.

Salon's 'nduja croquettes are certainly one of the nicest things I've eaten in 2017

Dinner is a set menu; a shorter option and an extended one. I opted for the smaller one as, believe me, life is too bloody short to agree to any chef’s extended menu. Don’t encourage them. You’ll still be there at midnight while he (it’s always a he) is sending out palate-cleansing sorbet that the waitress will tell you reminds chef of caravan holidays he had with Nana.

The Salon gang aren’t like this by the way. They’re friendly and not remotely earnest. My guest and I spent a glorious two hours making bowls of smoked squash with girolles and trompettes vanish, plus a pretty plate of cod with kohlrabi infused in elderflower with some sesame.

Salon’s dinner menu is sweetly pretentious but lovable. A main of Creedy Carver duck appears with a singular spindly albeit delicious titivated carrot, crab apple and kale. Each course comes with a story of the ingredients being home-pickled or in-house nurtured or delivered from a nearby allotment. Pudding was portions of roast apple on black-pepper ice cream with shards of crisp sourdough. I still cannot work out whether black-pepper ice cream is archly delicious or a culinary abomination, but this intrigue carried me through the entire bowl.

Salon by day is homely and at night is experimental, possibly challenging to some diners, but completely worth leaving one’s postcode for. I have learned my lesson about blanking Brixton; there are wonderful things happening in SW9.

Salon

1 ‘Nduja croquettes £6.50
2 Set menus £66
2 Meat supplements £12
5 Glasses of Ciuri Etna bianco £45
1 Glass of Grand Itata Cinsault £7.80
Total £137.30

18 Market Row, Brixton, SW9 (020 7501 9152; salonbrixton.co.uk)

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