Set to become one of Melbourne’s most revered restaurants, Salt is honest, reliable and genuine.
So called by the owner, Andrew Ligdopoulos, to reflect the restaurants ethos ‘Salt of the Earth’, Salt is the sleek, sophisticated newcomer to the prestigious Yarra’s Edge Docklands.
‘Salt is the kind of restaurant that lives up to its promise’, says Andrew. ‘We take the freshest, rawest ingredients in season and create new modern and traditional dishes that are the heart and soul of the Mediterranean. A night at salt is a night to remember.
Quietly slipping into town, but not going unnoticed, Salt has already created a stir with its menu featuring some of the most exciting seafood dishes Melbourne has to offer.
To keep its promise of providing Southern Mediterranean food at its most fresh, Salt has two daily fish deliveries ensuring only the very best of seafood on offer. Premium quality meats, hand-crafted pastas and ever-changing risottos will take pride of place on the menu that has been personally designed by Andrew and his head chef Joshua Doherty.
Joshua’s background has been in classic Italian with some of Melbourne’s finest. Joshua teamed up with Andrew in the late 1990s when he took over the much loved Café Centrale in Richmond. While working with Andrew, he and his family embraced Joshua and guided him into ‘stepping out’ of the classic Italian theme, showing him the home style Mediterranean way of cooking. They showed him methods and techniques that cannot be learnt from textbooks and schooling, but can only be learnt from generations of knowledge.
The menu will not change in the ‘old four times a year’ way, but will be consistently evolving with the markets, and by constantly out-sourcing only the best ingredients that our producers have. Salt’s menu will not be dictated by season, but rather the markets. But that should be obvious anyway.
A traditional menu of timeless classics is punctuated with some more unusual dishes like char grilled suckling pork cutlets with a timbale of coleslaw and roasted maldon apples; half roasted duckling boned with lemon thyme youvetsi and wilted spinach; or maybe some beautiful air freighted scampi and our award wining seafood marinara.
With its warm, earthy interior, Salt is stylish and unobtrusive; an ideal spot for an intimate dinner for two or to spend a more casual, relaxed afternoon or evening with a group of friends enjoying fine food, wine and the glorious view over Yarra’s Edge Marina.
Glamorous without being over the top, transparent shimmering curtains help divide the space into a more casual setting on one side with a more intimate formal section on the other.
Wherever you choose to dine, it is hard to resist even a peek at the separate bar, located along the back wall. With its stunning bottle-green tiles and chrome and wood features, you’d be forgiven for perching bar-side the whole evening.
Soft lighting sets an intimate, seductive scene, with three-tiered barrels hung throughout with silk ribbon, while flickering, wicker lights adorn each table. Spotted-gum wooden floors and the quality pistachio-coloured Italian high backed banquet inject an air of style into the sophisticated colour palette throughout.
But what good is a stunning restaurant without the passion and knowledge. Andrew left school early, deciding that kitchens and cafés are where you are educated. And from the age of sixteen he travelled Europe in search of that knowledge.
The result, Salt Restaurant.
See you there.
Andrew Ligdopoulos