Meet the neighbours: Smoke & Salt – Modern restaurant

I’m here in Tooting Broadway with Remi, chef and owner of Smoke and Salt.

Let’s go back to the beginning, How did you get into cooking?

I did a chemistry degree, then worked in the city but it wasn’t for me. I took a year out and went to work for my aunt at her catering company in Nigeria. Then I went off to America, trained there before moving back here in 2013 after 4 years of cooking in Boston.

Met Aaron my business partner at The Shed in Notting Hill. Since then we have been cooking together for 13/14 years.

What a journey. When did the Smoke and Salt concept come about?

We really wanted to do food that was different to what was around. So we launched a pop up Supper Club in 2014. We did our first night in my flat at home which was fun. We had a table of 4 people. On the back of that we launched a series of supper clubs and pop ups.  Then we finally settled on a home in Pop Brixton.

From Pop Brixton, why Tooting?

We’d had really good feed back in Brixton we loved being in the vibrant community. We fostered a community and following and we thought how were we able to say thank you, especially as we did a crowd fund to raise the money for the site. So part of the crowd fund we had a list of people who were nice enough to help us open and to pay back, we put names on a jar. We wanted to commemorate the fact a lot of people helped and this was a nice way to do it.

Suddenly this site became available in Tooting, we thought this feels really cool

How have you found the Tooting community?

It’s great being a part of a community where there’s a lot going on. When you can walk up and down the street and see ingredients, see food, smell food. You have the markets. This is an area that takes care of people and that’s why people come here.

How would you best describe what you offer here?

Our fundamental core is to offer an affordable tasting menu based around British seasonality. We take smoking, curing and preserving techniques from around the world hence the name smoke and salt.

We offer 2 tasting menus. We offer once a month burger nights. We take whole beef sirloins in and we cure it, marinate, mince and grind it down to make our own burgers.

Is burger night a different vibe to another night.

Yeah we play diner juke box music, the team is more casual, it’s a nice intro to Smoke & Salt to see what we do.

If there was one thing you wish people knew about Smoke and Salt?

We are not pretentious. People have an impression of tasting menus where it is tiny. It’s good food, it will nourish you, you will feel happily well fed.

What a great place, guys go check it out

Check out the full feature on my Instagram @homeswithchuk where you can also listen to part 2 of this chat.

Smoke and Salt - 115 Tooting High Street, SW17 0SY

Follow them on Instagram @smokeandsaltldn

Visit their website smokeansalt.com

Smoke and Salt

Love your local