Salt/Soy – Memphis Flyer

For those who eat too much at restaurants and, heaven forbid, are too stuffed to look at the dessert menu, here are some that restaurants offer, along with fall specials.

Dory: “The desserts at Dory are in the spirit of our childhoods,” says executive chef/co-owner Dave Krog. “Our current six-course dessert is aerated peanut butter mousse, chocolate sponge, salted caramel, blackberry, and peanut dust.”

Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen: “The fall pot de crème will be killer,” says general manager/beverage director Nick Talarico. “Spiced apples with an oat and walnut crumble. It’s like a crème brûlée and vanilla pudding.”

Kinfolk restaurant: “Bourbon pecan crème brûlée,” says chef/owner Cole Jeanes. “We toast the pecans before soaking them in heavy cream with a little orange zest. They steep overnight and, instead of granulated sugar, I use brown sugar. It’s rich, nutty, and super smooth. With a crunchy brûlée topped with candied pecans, there’s a great contrast in textures. Add a little smoked salt for another layer of flavor.”

Las Tortugas: “We do a piña colada flan, a traditional caramel flan that cooks in a water bath in the oven,” says chef/manager Jonathan Magallanes. “We then add roasted and fresh pineapple along with coconut shavings and crushed cashews, Mexican fresh cream, and powdered sugar.”

Acre: “I had an apple custard cake on the menu years ago,” says executive chef Andrew Adams. “The center was soft and custardy with bits of apples, and the top was a little crunchy and caramelized. This fall, I switched out the all-purpose flour with buckwheat. I steam the cake for the first 30 minutes and then put it in a high oven. I made the apples smaller, added cinnamon and cardamom and an oat top. The buckwheat adds a nutty flavor.”

The Beauty Shop Restaurant: Chef/owner Karen Carrier features an array of fall desserts — apple-caramel-almond babka from Love Bread Co., pistachio and fig babka, chocolate meringue pie, pecan pie with scoop of sweet potato gelato, lemon zest-sugar-butter crepe with a scoop of cinnamon Mexican chocolate chili gelato, and a dark chocolate crepe with pumpkin pie gelato.

Salt|Soy: “Chocolate miso chess pie with a sesame crust, Suntory Toki whipped cream, and sesame brittle,” says chef/owner Nick Scott. “It’s our East-meets-West take on chess pie. We started running it last fall and it became our house dessert.”

River Oaks Restaurant: “A lemon mousse with raspberries and caramelized whipped cream,” says general manager Colleen DePete. Another dessert: Chef/owner José Gutierrez will add “a poached pear with homemade vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and dark chocolate ganache garnished with thin cookies tuile.”

Southern Social: “Praline hazelnut cheesecake with caramelized hazelnuts and a warm chocolate sauce,” says pastry chef Franck Oysel.

117 Prime: “Pumpkin Delight Ooey Gooey Bars,” says chef/owner Ryan Trimm. “A rich, buttery cake bottom with a pumpkin spice cream cheese marbled custard baked to perfection.”

Kelly English restaurants: “At Pantà, we’re offering a decadent chocolate hazelnut cup topped with raspberry Chantilly,” says pastry chef Inga Theeke. “Look for that to change to a pumpkin and chai combination later this month. We’ve also played with the presentation of our Mel i Mató and now offer Mel i Cannoli. Mel i Mató is a traditional Catalan dessert that features a loose cheese similar to ricotta covered in honey. We top our house-made ricotta with Bee 901 honey and toasted pistachios. All tucked inside a Neules cone, a Catalan cookie.”

Fino’s From the Hill: “Apple spice bars will be in the case later this week, and ghost meringues will make their appearance later this month.”

The Second Line: “Seasonal desserts are changing to a chocolate pecan pie and caramel apple cheesecake.”

Restaurant Iris: “Desserts here are definitely influenced by the season. Look for a pear tarte Tatin and a pumpkin cheesecake over gluten-free spice cake, among others.”

Salt/Soy is slated to open in February in the Broad Avenue Arts District.

The goal is to get the restaurant at 2583 Broad “up and going before Valentine’s Day so we can do omakase, a Japanese tasting menu,” says owner/sushi chef Nick Scott. “Usually, the omakase chef comes up with a tasting menu on the fly. This is something we’d set; three or four courses.”

Salt/Soy was hosting pop-up omakases Thursdays through Fridays at Alchemy, which Scott also owns. The pop-up events were “mainly a preview for what’s to come,” he says. They were “a huge success. The lines couldn’t get through the door.”

Camille Jones

Alex Moseley, and Brad McCarley

When Salt/Soy opens on Broad, the menu will include vegetarian and pork ramen bowls. The restaurant’s general manager, Brad McCarley, who Scott worked with at the old City Block Salumeria, is “curing all the meat in-house. We’re fermenting our own miso, our own kimchi. We’ll let that inspire the direction we go in. He’s got a ‘fried chicken and dumpling’ dumpling. It’s incredible.”

There are talks of doing a dim sum brunch on Sundays, but offering it between noon and 6 p.m. instead of earlier in the day.

But Salt/Soy isn’t going to limit itself to serving one type of food, Scott says. “We’re not pigeonholing ourselves to only doing Japanese. It will be Asian-inspired; pulling from all cultures and melding them together.”

And, he says, “I’m also looking for some Pacific inspiration there. We might throw in some tiki stuff. We may do some riffs on classic tiki drinks. We’ve talked about that. The overall menu — the food menu, the sushi menu, and the cocktail menu — is going to be really fun, exciting, different.”

Salt/Soy began as a pop-up in 2018 at Puck Food Hall. The idea was “sushi and seafood with ceviches and different types of crudos,” Scott says. And “market-style fish and seafood by the pound.

“The next stage we started looking for brick and mortar. We looked at a lot of places. We knew Lucky Cat [Ramen] went out of business, unfortunately. And there was a lot of talk about it within the industry, a lot of people who wanted to get in there. I had some real estate contacts who lead me in the right direction, and it kind of fell in my lap.

“It was a no-brainer,” he adds. “They had everything built out and ready to go. We changed a few things, but not a lot. That happened in October.”

The concept for the new location is “less of a market concept and more of an izakaya sushi concept,” Scott says. “A Japanese drinking establishment, with Japanese tapas, serving small plates. People come in and have drinks and cocktails.”

Downstairs will be “a little more upper-scale dining,” he says. “We’ll have the patio, which will evolve over spring and summer — a massive patio. And then upstairs will be more of a late-night, rock-and-roll situation. Kind of a little more gritty than downstairs. We’ve talked about getting a Bluetooth record player up there and playing only vinyl.”

Bar manager Alex Moseley came over from Alchemy. McKenzie Nelson, who was at Lucky Cat and High Noon, also will be behind the bar. Both bartenders are “very creative,” Scott says.

The restaurant has been given an artful makeover. They repainted the interiors and brought in an artist, David Johnson, to survey the space to determine how he could bring his own creative vision into the mix.

Scott says Johnson outfitted some of the downstairs spaces with paintings that work with the restaurant’s new color scheme. “His artwork is black and white with pops of color — and [the pieces] will be for sale.”

The restaurant’s name already adorns the front door. Scott can’t wait for that door to open to the public. “It’s going to be a fun place.”