Salt & Time’s Dinner Menu Grows with the Herd

Words by Ben Haguewood   Photos by Ashley Haguewood

The famous French chef Jacques Pepin said in a recent interview, “The best restaurant is the one where they know you.”

As Austin traffic patterns confine us to our neighborhoods in the evenings, this becomes a novel concept, though potentially a boring one. But East-siders looking to stay in their community can rejoice in Salt and Time’s dinner menu; it’s never the same. Salt and Time incorporates meat sourced and harvested from local ranches into its fresh butcher case, its salumeria, and its lunch and dinner menu.There are enough options to satisfy the most adventurous diner any night of the week, every night of the week—provided you eat meat.

The variety of meats from beef, chicken, and pork to lamb, elk, quail, and more find their place on the menu from top to bottom, appetizers and shared plates like Beef Rib Terrine and Elk Chuck Roll, down to a widely varied selection of butcher’s cuts. Each part of the animal is used. Each daily dinner menu will include half a dozen or more cuts of beef and lamb ready for the grill, along with ribs, shanks, jowls, and more than one expects at a high-end steak house. Accompanying the traditional and not-so-traditional cuts are a tender braised dish, like an elk neck served carnitas-style or wine-braised short rib, and a daily pasta selection that can vary from a house-made pappardelle pasta with braised osso bucco to a carbonara made with house-cured guanciale. The steaks are simply grilled to showcase the quality of the meat, though many seemingly familiar dishes offer a creative flourish.

If you haven’t been in Salt and Time in a while, it has grown. At the end of the long hardwood bar, studded with half a dozen taps, is a new station—akin to a sushi bar for meat charcuterie, cheese, and small plates. The restaurant is offering an expanded selection of Salami and Cheese Boards, Odd Bits of offal, and a daily Tartare—from the classic beef with lemon, chives, and egg yolk to a ceviche inspired tartare taco with finely cubed raw beef, fresh jalapeño, and crème fraiche served on a corn crisp.

The butchery and salumeria operation offer ample opportunities to take a meaty taste of Salt and Time home—in the form of a holiday meat tray or main course like a standing rib roast or stuffed porchetta. Or you could just come back and see what’s new.

Native Knowledge: To reserve a special meat tray or butcher selection—like the Mezcal Glazed Ham or stuffed Porchetta, visit the store at 1912 E. 7th St.

Brunch: Each Sunday from 10-3, Salt & Time serves up elevated diner classics and Texas standards to eager brunch-goers. Hearty plates of pancakes, house-cured bacon, hash, steak and eggs—executed with the same care and craft as the dinner menu—are on offer, as well as meat-centric plates that showcase the restaurant’s top-notch ingredients. The empanada, for example, is filled with braised lamb and topped with a fresh sunny-side up egg and a drizzle of creme fraiche, and humble Southwest classics like migas and menudo are prepared with seasonal vegetables and high-quality meats. The biscuit and gravy is, unsurprisingly, not just a biscuit and gravy; the homemade biscuit is topped with a chicken-fried steak, sausage gravy, and a fresh farm egg. Like all the brunch specials, each plate is enough to share. But you probably won’t want to.

Contact:
512.524.1383
1912 E. 7th St.
saltandtime.com