Salt Yard

To walk into Salt Yard is to inhale the very essence of Spanish and Italian cuisine. Their main purpose is to serve modern tapas, that wonderful Mediterranean answer to modern eating that has swept the board in recent years. At Salt Yard tapas are supplemented by charcuterie and cheese boards, thereby offering complete meals in miniature or a glass of wine and some cheese.

This means that Salt Yard is in a position to satisfy almost every eating whim that its customers may entertain; no wonder it is so popular. Amongst the charcuterie and bar snacks expect to find a range of cured hams and salamis, including the Jamόn Ibérico

De Bellota, made from semi-wild acorn-hungry pigs in Southern Spain, carved to order at the bar.

Tapas come in all sorts of manifestations, with the emphasis placed on quality and the marrying of flavours. Vegetarians are especially well looked after, and a veggy signature dish of courgette flowers stuffed with goats-cheese and drizzled with honey is particularly popular. Amongst numerous other dishes look for the crispy squid with chickpea purée, chargrilled quail with yellow beans, wild garlic leaf and hazelnuts, or confit of Gloucester Old Spot pork belly with rosemary scented cannelini beans.

A blood orange and campari sorbet and per sorbet with a chocolate brandy snap makes a mouthwatering end to the meal, though some may be deflected by some of the house-made Frangelico ice cream, with soft chocolate cake. Well, you know how the Italians are with ice cream.

A patriotic attitude to wine is reflected in a list that is solely Spanish or Italian, and of a high standard with adequate choices by the glass. And if you like your Bellinis and martinis Salt Yard is the place for you.