The Salt Room — Restaurant in Great Britain

I had an extremely unpleasant and humiliating experience at The Salt Room in Brighton on Wednesday evening.

My friend and I arrived without a booking. As it was a weekday and the restaurant was not full, we thought this would not be an issue. When we entered, we were immediately shown to a table directly opposite the toilets.

We politely asked if we could sit further inside or by the window instead, as there were clearly other empty tables. The manager (an English gentleman who appeared to be in charge) suddenly became very hostile and said: “If you don’t sit at this table, then you go.”

We were shocked and asked him to apologise for speaking to us like that. He refused to apologise, pushed the door open, and told us to leave. He even put his hand on my friend’s shoulder and grabbed the clothing near her shoulder, as though physically forcing us out. At that point, my friend firmly but calmly said: “Don’t touch me.”

To make matters worse, as we left the restaurant, another staff member — a young woman working at the bar — mocked us sarcastically, saying: “They’re leaving.”

Throughout this whole situation, we never raised our voices, behaved rudely, or disturbed any other guests. In fact, when the manager first told us “If you don’t sit at this table, then you go,” we quietly asked, “Excuse me, how can you say that to customers?” Our voices were so low that even the diners at the next table did not hear anything. The only moment our voices rose slightly was when the manager touched my friend, and she simply warned him not to do so.

Both my friend and I are Chinese, and although English is not our first language, we have lived and worked in the UK for many years. We are both educators in Oxford — my friend is a teacher, and her husband is the headmaster of a private school. We are fully aware of the most basic polite expressions in English, and we would never speak offensively to any member of staff.

If the tables we requested were reserved, the manager could have explained it in a professional way — for example: “Sorry, that table has been reserved,” or “The guests will arrive soon, but if you are happy to wait, I can arrange it.” That would have been a perfectly reasonable explanation. Instead, the first response we got was: “If you don’t sit at this table, then you go.”

This was followed by physical contact, refusal to apologise, being pushed towards the door, and finally open mockery from another staff member.

This is the first time in all my years in the UK that I have experienced such treatment in a restaurant. In the past, when I dined out with my late British stepfather, I was always treated with respect. My friend also said she had never experienced such behaviour when dining out with her British husband.

We left The Salt Room feeling humiliated, unwelcome, and extremely disappointed. This experience was degrading and unacceptable, and I hope the management will take it seriously.

What I want to emphasise is this: My complaint is not about being seated at a table opposite the toilets. It is about the fact that when we politely asked the waiter if we could change tables, he responded rudely and said, “then you go” — such an attitude is extremely disrespectful towards customers.

Secondly, when we felt offended by that remark and asked him to apologise, he refused, claimed that my friend was “mad”, and continued to be rude. He even put his hand on my friend’s shoulder and directly tried to force us out.

All we did was make a polite request to ask if we could change tables. If the answer had been no, he could have replied in a very polite way, like any normal human being. Every step of what he did showed none of the basic standards of conduct that someone working in the service industry...

Despite living in the area for over a decade, I'd always held off visiting the Salt Room, in case it turned out to be a culinary disappointment, sustained only by its established name, a prime seafront location and Brighton's hearty tourist trade. There's no shortage of eating options in these parts (many of which launch with great aplomb but quietly close a few years later) and on the rare occasion that we venture out for dinner it's easy to be seduced by the newest offering.

Well, I now feel like I owe the Salt Room a considerable apology. A chance lunchtime booking to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary in October saw us wading enthusiastically through their signature seafood platter, lobster, aoli and french fries with seaweed seasoning, before rounding off with an array of picture-perfect desserts. And by Valentine's weekend we'd returned, this time convincing ourselves that we would add some starters as well, because my husband's gluten-allergy would probably limit the dessert choices (spoiler alert: it didn't and we had some of those to boot).

The food was, without exception, perfect - wonderfully fresh, beautifully cooked, and seamlessly modified to avoid either allergic reaction or the misery of one half of the party having nothing fun to eat. The service was flawlessly balanced - welcoming, informative, but devoid of snoot; our waiter reassuringly deemed our frankly gluttonous order as 'a very good amount of food...for hungry people'. The restaurant on both occasions was busy, but the spacing of the tables allowed me to concentrate on my husband's conversation and not everyone else's merriment, and pace-wise we felt neither neglected nor rushed.

Unlike most of these reviews, I have no photos to add, and that is testament to my energy and fingers being enthusiastically occupied with eating, rather than snapping, scrolling and texting. I don't think we remembered to take the standard 'look we're out on a date' photo until our table was composed largely of empty glasses and dessert plates, and the few snaps along the way showed me gaily waving oyster shells, prawns and mini puddings around with probably more excitement than manners.

Walking back, our conversation turned to 'was there anything we'd do differently next time?' and the only thought we could scrape up was 'perhaps we would have something new instead of the lobster, which was lovely, but we've had it twice in a row now'. An answer which both makes us sound a preposterously Marie-Antoinette level of spoiled, and is testament to our hopes for another booking in the near future. A massive thank you to Franck and the team for making our dining...

For a start, you need to train your staff on how to be polite and helpful to customers, and to also take their complaints seriously instead of just making jokes as a response. We had to ask for drinks multiple times, the only check-back that we received was for the starters, no one asked if any of our party had any allergies which is now a basic legal requirement which even your average greasy-spoon cafe can manage to follow, no apology was received when the apalling quality of some of the mains was brought to light, and the staff were generally dismissive. Whilst the starters were pleasant enough (nothing amazing, but tasty enough), some of the mains were absolutely terrible. The cod was dry and flavourless, as was the bed of kale upon which it sat. The shellfish platter was barely palatable. There was only 2 of each item, so by the time my partner and I had given each a chance, the food was nearly gone. The scallops were cooked perfectly, but tasted completely bland. The two types of prawn were both unfresh, flavourless, and not properly cleaned (when another member of our party asked if they were fresh, the waiter simply responded with a confused "oui"). The crispy squid wasn't terrible, but was extremely salty and I've tasted better in almost all other establishments I have ordered it from. The muscles which are included in the platter (at £40pp) were the worst we have ever tasted! They sat in a shallow puddle of flavourless broth with a few sprigs of thyme and little else just dashed in the pot with them, to the point that I could only stomach 3 of them. Even the fries were extremely salty, and when complaints were made, the waiter simply joked and said "well that's why it's called the salt room" (lucky for him, I was in the toilet at the time when this was said). Overall, this restaurant is an absolute joke! For such prices, you expect top quality food and service, but this establishment is nothing but a pretty shell with nothing pleasant inside. I am extremely disappointed as there seems to be so many great reviews and I had travelled all the way down from Chester (a 4.5hr journey) to celebrate both my Birthday and my cousin's engagement with my family who all live fairly local to Brighton and I rarely get to see, only to be ripped off by one of the worst restaurants I have ever been to! Had it not been for the storm on the sea front with torrential wind and rain, and the fact that it was NYD meaning anywhere else would have been fully booked, we would have cut our meal short and gone elsewhere. Overall, this restaurant has both figuratively and literally left a bitter taste...