…“The good seasoning of Flor de Sal in Mirandela…
Going to Vinhais searching for the braised bisaro ham, an objective fulfilled 100 per cent, led me to this restaurant Flor de Sal, in Mirandela, a house still smelling new, who honours those bold enough to build it, the town where it is located and the region it belong to.
This Flor de Sal was a nice surprise and that’s what I want to stress. It is less interesting, for now, to call the attention to any ingenuousness detected in one or other detail of the cuisine or the table service. Let’s focus on the essential which, in this case, is the menu where the regional products are valued, enhancing the olive oil menu and the section of traditional dishes, the wine list and related service, whose responsible is a young Dutch woman, a great professional in Mirandela and anywhere else in the world. She dedicates all her attention to the decanting of the bottles, whenever needed, to the temperature of the wine, and to the glasses. Furthermore, despite her discreet nature, she does not inhibit herself of making appropriate remarks on the characteristics of the wines, which she tastes with great competence.
The Flor de Sal serves wine by glass. Besides the service à la carte, where it is possible to choose from a menu of 12 first courses, six salads, six soups, six shellfish dishes, eight fish dishes and the same number of meat dishes, six pasta dishes, eleven regional dishes, four vegetarian dishes, seven choices of kids menu, twelve rice dishes (all for two), nine desserts, a suggestion for a tourist meal (couvert, dish, fruit of the season, glass of wine, mineral water and coffee 20.00 € per person), to a suggestion of three menus, all followed by different wines. These are the sea menu, the degustation menu, and the olive oil menu. Notice the last one: olive oil tasting with toasts and olive pâté (white castelo d’alba vinhas velhas); olive oil trilogy of flavours (white Montes Ermos); carpaccio of cod with olive pâté (white grambeira); grilled oyster mushroom with olive oil and salt flower (white Valle pradinhos); colonel sorbet; octopus with aromatised olive oil (Cistus reserve 2003); and olive oil pudding with sweet olives and olive oil ice-cream and honey (Quinta do Crasto vintage Port 2000). The group I was with, who one of these days were dinning at Flor de Sal and had wines of Luís Soares Duarte/João Roseira (Gouvyas Kolheita and Quinta do Infantado) and Celso Pereira (Vértice, brut sparkling wine and wine, and red Quanta Terra) to taste, chose the degustation menu: fried crepes with garlic and parsley; stuffed morels with foie gras; grilled sea bass medallion; colonel sorbet: veal medallion with mustard. We traded the sour chocolate soufflé on this menu for olive oil pudding and ice-cream, plus the olive oil tasting with toasts and also grilled oyster mushroom, a fleshy mushroom with the texture of meat and aroma and taste of autumn. The sea bass came, as expected, from a fish pond but was well prepared and except that, everything else made sense. I applaud the boldness of the chef for including the refined and expensive morels in this menu, and the fleshy flap mushrooms. I inform that on the “regional dishes” the suggestions are “alheira” meat-balls, sour sausages (azedos), butelo (sausage made from the pork bladder) with French beans, home style Portuguese cozido, smoked pork leg and home style pork cracklings (all these are only made if ordered in advance) roast linguiça (chitterling sausage), vegetable trinxat and “alheira” trunk. From the rice dishes I enhance the cod rice, the octopus rice, the rabbit rice, the thrush rice, the partridge rice and the mushroom rice. There are also a few less important, but their identification and critique will stay for another occasion in a longer visit.
Today this is about making a stand and calling attention to this example that comes from Mirandela. 2005 is almost over and 2006 comes involved in ill omens, but experiences like this Flor de Sal tell us that not everything is misfortune.
Still on time: the Flor de Sal has a cigar list, is preparing a list of olive oils and has its own production of olive oil. Besides this, it collaborates in initiatives of the olive and olive oil museum of Mirandela that publishes a beautiful thematic magazine called Ouro Virgem. Well done!"...
David Lopes Ramos (2006)
