Rick Nelson on Salt Cellar: 'Intriguing but Uneven'

This week in Week in Reviews, the Star Tribune's Rick Nelson visits Cathedral Hill steakhouse, Salt Cellar where an awkward recount of his table-side preparation of Caesar salad leads into his two-star review.

Nelson gave praise to the meat-centric parts of the menu but found imbalances across many other dishes. "The shining star is definitely his eye-catching and well-crafted charcuterie platter, a superb array of terrines, pâtés, hams, sausages and rillettes that Bergo views as a direct reflection of the restaurant’s meat-preservation-minded name." However, he says "when the kitchen goes off the rails, it crash-lands with a resounding thud." Of the non-meat items, he says "I never encountered a pasta that wasn’t inedibly salty. Oh, and an all-vegetable pot-au-feu was disastrous, a sad mélange of limp vegetables and lifeless broth that felt like a punishment for vegetarians daring to dine at steakhouse."

If you go? Get the charcuterie (and the steaks), and skip the tableside service.