What happens when there is Smoke before Fire?

The whole idea of Smoke & Salt started just over a year ago with little more than 2 people and a silly idea. Before “The First Smoke” ever existed we did need to make sure the efforts would not be in vain, so when a small group of compatriots came over for dinner one night in May 2014, they were technically our first “guests” and this is what they ate....

Of course there needs to be some back story before commencing a run through of our first menu, otherwise this would indeed be a very brief passage to take in! Recently, I've been doing a bit of looking back at where we were a year ago and how things have progressed in that time and I've realised that at no point have we mentioned this very first dinner. It's weird writing this in hindsight because, even with the minimal experiences we've had over the past year, there are things which I (and I'm sure A) would have done differently. Some things have already been improved on (our Smoked Chicken dish for example) but others still need work (A is still learning how to start a BBQ!).

A starting the hot-smoker for the first time ever...

We set ourselves some early deadlines to come up with ideas and menus and knew we'd have to test them out on some willing guests at some point and in this case we had decided to choose a group of friends from different backgrounds. All these friends do have food as an interest so why not put them into the same room and give them the guinea pig treatment!? We devised a menu, planned out everything we might need to do to get it onto a home dining table (because we still had no real kitchen to use at this point, nor how to find one), sourced our ingredients and then bravely “went for it” as some might say! 

A still trying to get the coals going

The result was a dinner served to the discerning palates of Messrs Chris (writer, instagrammer and regular dining partner), Courtney (MisterGoodThings himself, Founder of Good Things Magazine and media guru), Jack (son of Walter Rose & Son, meat lover and father to one Walter the dog) and Tom (aka the man behind the logo, graphic design mogul and casual food lover) on the 29th of May 2014.

Finally got it going

The photos tell the true story of the lead up so I will let them do the talking. When you're done, please do let us know what you think! R.

Lemon Sole Ceviche - soy, citrus, passion fruit, radish, snap peas, coriander

Hickory Smoked Chicken - umeboshi glaze, humita, charred gorn, radish tops, carolina gold

Grilled Banana - berberis, whisky, caramel, vanilla creme-fraiche, puff pastry