Salt at Portland Marina — Restaurant in England

Steer well clear of this place! My wife and me were invited by our son and daughter -in-law for a meal at this place. In the past, although expensive it has been a great place to eat out. It has recently changed hands and I don't think it could get any worse. We had a table booked for 7.30pm but arrived at 7.00pm. We were shown to our table and said we would start with a drink. The place had around 3 full tables and roughly 20 empty ones. I went to the bar and purchased a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, (not Pouilly Fume or Chablis, but a bottle of wine I would of assumed cost around £5-7. A bottle of wine and 1 pint of Atlantic IPA was £47.53. £37.00 for the wine & around £10.00 for the IPA. When I questioned it, I was chared 10% service. I said I was not going to pay the service charge so they offered a free pint of IPA. We were told by the young lady who served us to order our meals as soon as possible as, at around 7.45pm it was completly booked out. Throughout the rest of the night that we stayed, there was only another 4 tables occupied. We had another 3 bottles of wine @ £37.00 each and my son had another 3 pints of IPA. We all ordered starters, mine was ox cheek on a crumpet. It was okay! We all ordered 10oz Sirloin steaks @ £30.00 each, which when they came were not even warm, two were cooked wrong, and they came with a few skinny chips, also cold & a small hanful of Rocket leaves. We sent the whole lot back and did not want to stay there after all this. My son paid for the drink around £143.00 I think and we left. This place is possibly now the worst place to eat we have visited. The new owners have turned what was a higher class, moderately expensive restuarant (which you did not mind paying for) into an abysmal excuse for a restuarant. It is also mega expensive for what you get. I hope that this helps some of you to actually not visit this place and you find yourself a better place to eat, in fact I would recommend anywhere...

We went to Salt for dinner, for the first time since it opened earlier this year. Having read previous negative reviews we were apprehensive and curious, but I am pleased to say we enjoyed it.

We found the staff to be awesome, and with the somewhat limited menu to offer (still good options, and it is a Monday night after all - stock being replenished tomorrow) we enjoyed the ‘smash’ burger and fish and chips we ordered. Food arrived fast.

Pros; The fish (in the fish and chips) can be a normal size or a mega size - you choose what you prefer.

I currently can’t really have fried food, and the team could not have been more helpful, offering to switch out chips for vegetables or roast potatoes.

The Bushranger Shiraz was £30, and a jolly decent red wine (scoring 3.8 on Vivino for those who know 😉). And bravely the waiter said to scan the label in front of him as he was curios to know the score too!!!

Cons; The only con for me was that the 2/4/1 cocktails are not week long, but just happy hour at the weekend - we did have 2 superb Espresso Martinis, and £11 each is pretty pricey.

Tonight no beers on tap, as finished.

No salt on the table in a restaurant called Salt!! Make a feature of the name, get some pink salt blocks, black salt etc on the table.

As we paid we chatted to the assistant manager about the great experience we’d had, and that other recent negative reviews had made us worry that tonight might not be good, and he was very honest and said that the reviews received were so very important and they really shape the direction of the restaurant. The management are all new, assistant manager only 2 weeks in, and manager only 3 weeks in.

Please do give Salt a chance, we loved it, and hope they have a terrific summer season. We’ll be back again (this week...

I visited on my own on a Sunday evening. It was relatively busy, but I easily found an available table. I noticed that staff were quick to clean any recently vacated tables.

I ordered my drink at the bar before sitting down to decide what I wanted to eat. When I mentioned I wanted food, I was advised there was a "limited menu" available, but this only took out a couple of starters and some of the main dishes, which I considered to be reasonable at the end of the week.

I ordered the Crab Arancini as a starter, and the Salt Burger for a main. Both dishes arrived at the same time, which wasn't ideal or what I had in mind, but the Crab Arancini were initially a little too warm for me to enjoy anyway, so being able to switch between the two dishes was actually fine.

Initially, I was dubious about how much Crab was in the Arancini, but when I went back to it after a couple of bites of my burger, the flavour was definitely there. The Arrabiata sauce was just the right level of heat for the Arancini, and I even found myself adding it to the burger.

The burger itself was as good as any you'll find in this type of eatery. Maybe could've done with some sort of sauce besides the cheese, but I didn't request anything other than mayo on the side, so perhaps that one's on me. I'm not sure if the giant pickle slice in the side salad with the burger is standard or because I requested extra pickles, but either way I appreciated it.

I didn't take any pictures because I just wanted to get stuck in, but I promise you it looked really good.

All in all, I found the staff friendly & attentive without being over-bearing, and I enjoyed being able to relax & read my book in relative peace. I'm looking forward to my future visits and to sampling more...