The Salt Exchange, Portland, Maine Restaurant Details

Food:

The cioppino was amazing. Not traditional. The broth was sublime.

Food:

Had a wonderful lunch with friends at the salt exchange. I had the fish tacos and arugula salad. It was the perfect amount of food - very fresh and light but still satisfying. I would definitely recommend!

Food:

A lot of people classify this as an expensive place to eat, but I disagree. There courses for two Pepe with drinks for about $70 is actually very good for the type of good and level of service. Pidgins are good, yes smaller than a burner joint or your standard steakhouse, but perfect bit this type of food. Will definitely be returning

Food:

The first thing our waitress told us was that ordering *at least* 3 or 4 plates was recommended to make a meal. This idea would be welcome if the prices weren't so high. Portland has plenty of foodies with a good understanding of fine dining, but it's also a working class town where one expects to be satisfied without breaking the bank. An ounce of food better blow me away for it to be worth ordering, and while some items were tasty nothing we ordered was of that caliber. The salad I ordered was so overly salted that it was inedible. I chose not to send it back because another party was treating and it would have been distasteful to complain. The wait staff was very friendly, the atmosphere was lovely, but until they ease up on the salt and the prices I won't be inclined to return.

Food:

Atmosphere is great and I love getting away to the soothing and cozy yet open and clean space.

I tried the Maine fish prepared in 3 variations. Don't try this unless you have a lot of money to throw around where $3 per bite is a risk you are willing to take. I couldn't even get enough of a bite to really taste anything. Not enough to share unless you are a mouse.

I had a vanilla parsnip soup with lobster. This was actually a pretty cool idea - they pulled it off well. As the most substantial part of my meal though, it was a little too much sweet & creamy. There are only two bites of lobster and since that is the 'wow' part of the dish, you are left with a lot of 'eh' left over.

The apple/bacon fritters were fantastic! You get two and each is a healthy two bites. Delicious enough to want more, but rich enough that after 2 or 3 you might get sick of them.

Mushroom entree with egg was excellent too. I highly recommend this one.

I couldn't take throwing more money away so we opted out of wine and walked to Bard's afterwards for a healthy sized latte and blueberry coffee cake.