Honey Salt elevates elements of country dining

The napkins are tea towels like you'd find in a country kitchen. The tables are plank board, and the chairs are metal with rustic effects, no two the same. The wait staff wears checkered shirts and blue jeans.

Honey Salt owners Elizabeth Blau and her husband, chef Kim Canteenwalla, wanted to open a restaurant that reflected their culinary home life. Honey Salt took over the location once occupied by Nora's Wine Bar & Osteria at 1031 S. Rampart Blvd.

"We do quite a bit of entertaining at home," Canteenwalla said. "We have a couple of other restaurants, and we have our consulting company, which is concept and development all across the country, Canada, Mexico to Asia. So we're always into food, operationally and building (wise), so we do a lot of entertaining at home. We have a Viking kitchen, and it's personal. There are little bits and pieces that we've grown, so this is an extension of that. That's how we look at this restaurant. It's an extension of our home ... in a bigger format."

The bigger format has the eatery seating 148 diners and covering 4,500 square feet. To give it a homey feel, the back wall was bricked over, and various mirrors cover the facing wall. Framed pictures are of the family. It's all set off by ivory walls and bench seating in a subtle lime color. The bar has two flat-screen televisions up high. Around the corner is the galley area for more intimate dining space.

Honey Salt's atmosphere may radiate the comforts of home, but the food is a cut above most mothers' expertise.

Lunch includes whole wheat pizza, roast Scottish salmon and bistro-style steak frites. It has 200 bottles on its wine list and 20 by the glass.

Dinner items include caramelized sea scallops, free-range brick-oven chicken, 12-ounce Cedar River New York strip and grass-fed filet mignon. A weekend brunch is a possibility in the future.

"It's 'food healthy' here, you'll find a lot of quinoa and lentils," server David Jong said. "They work with a lot of farms out of California."

Make room for dessert, which includes pumpkin cheesecake, warm bread pudding and baked apple pie. Portions are large enough to share.

"The menu is developed on things that are favorites to us and our friends, recipes that have been in the family, that kind of thing," Canteenwalla said. "We've tweaked them. We've made them a little fancier, a little more soigné.

"Like the chicken curry that we offer in the evening, Nana's chicken curry, it's my mother's (recipe). We grew up with it, but I changed it along the way. I converted it to give a little different angle. We use Indian curry and Madras curry, a little French blend, and ---- I worked in Thailand for some years, so ---- I hit it with a little red curry and Greek yogurt to finish it but also a little coconut milk, which is very tart. So you're getting the best of both worlds there."

The couple's son, Cole, 8, had a role in choosing the children's menu.

"The children's menu is kid-tested, Mom-approved," said Oliver English, who is a manager with Blau's company. "We had Cole and 20 of his close friends before we opened to taste the menu. We had two big tables and lined them up for the kids, and we had all their parents. And we brought all the food out and had them try it. After a few portions, there were kids running everywhere, they were all over, especially after the dessert. But they had a great time."

There was no shortage of patrons within a week of Honey Salt's opening.

"I saw the reviews online, and I have some friends who've had it, and everybody says it's phenomenal," said Jim Hill of Summerlin. "It's nice that there's a place you can bring your kids to and have good food. It's kind of rare that you can find a place like that up here. You can bring home family, which is kind of nice."

Diner Vadim Friedman said, "I think it's great, it's great for the residents and great for the community."

He agreed that he could bring his family and feel at home.

"If they had 140 of their closest friends over, this is how they would do it," English said of the owners.

Honey Salt is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. For more information, visit honeysalt.com or call 702-445-6100.

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 702-387-2949.