Salute is certainly not the first and it won’t be the last restaurant in this city to suffer from trying to do too much and not quite getting any of it right. Even after eating there a couple of times we’re not sure how to describe it. Is it a wine bar, a music venue, a club? It might depend on where you sit. Opt for the pleasant alfresco terrace with its sofa seating and enjoy a glass or two of wine. Head into the nightclub style interior and you’ll find yourself shouting to be heard, even when the live music isn’t playing. The sloppy service certainly doesn’t help—if it really is a wine bar then perhaps they should give us the wine menu before taking our food order; and it would be nice to have more choices by the glass. Not that we’d lose any sleep over any of this if Salute was just a wine bar. But it’s also a restaurant with a pretty long menu (featuring frankly surreal descriptions) that flits between French, Italian and even throws in the odd burger and steak for good measure. To be fair it’s not as big a train wreck as it could have been, but you can’t help wishing that they focused on doing a few things better. Take appetizers like the New Zealand mussels in arriabata sauce. Yes they’re big, but they are also incredibly chewy and the spicy sauce quickly overpowers everything else. The garlic escargots and bread are decent, if a little over salted, but we could do without so much watery spinach and cheese. Watery is also a fair description for the Tiger prawns with brandy sauce, it would have been nice to taste a hint of brandy. It’s the opposite effect on the duck breast with orange sauce, where the nicely fatty duck, crisp vegetables and crunchy chips are all undone by a cloyingly sweet sauce that tastes like the center of a chocolate liqueur. We paint a pretty depressing picture but maybe we’re missing something. After all, it’s busy even midweek and seems to have a pretty loyal following. Perhaps just ignore the bistro part of their name and come enjoy the wine and the breeze instead.
