Worth their salt

Age-old minerals give color and flavor to artfully created food. Donna Mah explores some tabletop geology in Hong Kong.

What would life be without salt? We use it to flavor food. Pickle food. Cure meat. Melt ice on driveways and roads. We don't usually give much thought to the types of salt we are using - but some restaurant chefs have become intrigued. Armani/Aqua has introduced a Salt Discovery menu which uses a number of ancient salts to enhance the natural flavors of each dish.

Armani/Aqua currently uses 15 different salts but expects to have 20-25 salts soon, according to head chef Andrea Magnano. Chef Magnano is passionate about salt. He has spent years studying, experimenting with and sourcing the salts that are used in his dishes.

Needless to say, the table salt that most of us grew up with isn't part of the Salt Discovery menu. Table salt is refined and white with the minerals having been removed. The ancient salts are said to be free of pollution and contain many minerals which are needed for maintaining good health.

The salts that Magnano uses are beautiful. The Himalayan pink salt is about 260 million years old filled with 80-plus minerals, and if you look carefully, a few small fossils, too. The Persian Blue salt is an underground salt that is about 100 million years old with highly compressed crystals that make it look blue. The yellow Cypriot Saffron Pyramids have been dried on a bed of crocus flowers that give a delicate saffron flavor to the crystals. All the salts presented had their own distinctive look and taste.

The menu consists of six courses, but first try one of several salt cocktails on offer - perhaps the Blue Margarita made with Persian Blue salt, or the Pink Poodle made with citrus-infused Beefeater 24 gin and freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice with Pink Himalayan salt.

A few highlights from the menu include the starter Three Prawns, an elegantly presented dish with three Botan prawns served on a thick and heavy slab of Pink Himalayan salt.