Maldon Sea Salt Flakes

Picture from the Maldon website, because the other option was a shoddy iPhone photo.

Okay, the first thing you have to know about me to understand this review is: I Love Unnecessary Kitchen Things. I love them. I can't help it-- cooking is a hobby of mine, and it seems like I am constantly stumbling across more things I absolutely need for my kitchen. Considering that my kitchen has maybe 6 feet of counter space, this is a problem-in-progress.

An 8.5oz box of Maldon Sea Salt is like, four inches tall. It can fit in my horrible, shallow disco-cabinet. Also, it promises to Change The Way You Look At Salt Forever (or... something). How could I resist?


To be fair, I had a reason to buy it-- it was technically purchased for use in a recipe for Apple Cider Caramels (found in the peerless Deb Perelman's "Smitten Kitchen Cookbook"), and considering that those were going to be gifts for assorted relatives & family friends, a $6 box of salt didn't really seem like that big of an expense. Shelling out nearly a dollar for two tablespoons of salt might seem like a bigger deal if you haven't got a particular incentive in mind.

Down to actual quality: this salt is awesome. You can definitely taste the difference between Maldon salt and Grocery-Store-Down-The-Street-Brand sea salt-- it's lighter, it's less bitter, it's over-all... I don't know, saltier. It's also prettier: your food will look more like a Kinfolk magazine photoshoot, guaranteed.

The real question, of course, is: is it worth it?

At the end of the day, it's salt. Really good salt, yes, but it doesn't cook your dinner for you or even come in a Cool Vintage Tin you can use to store pens in after you're out. I'd say that if you use lots of other spices or you're not interested in cooking with fresh/quality ingredients at least once in awhile, it's not worth it-- lots of other spices would over-power the salt to make the quality difference between Maldon and regular sea salt negligible, and it would take a lot of it to make shitty produce less shitty.

But if you try to buy decent produce, and/or the only spices you use regularly are salt and pepper-- I'd say try it! It makes your food fancier. And tastier. And if salt is one of your two major spices, you might as well buy good salt, right?

Grade: A- (excellent salt, but expensive; should at least come in a fancy tin)
Buy: Off of Amazon.