Unopened, 90 days chilled. Once opened, three days, wrapped tight.
On the palate
Silk texture, no chew. Sweet at the front, then juniper and citrus, then a long clean alder finish with almost no salt sting.
Where this dish comes from
Cold smoking is one of the oldest food technologies we still practise unchanged. Coastal peoples of the North Pacific were hanging split salmon in alder smoke thousands of years before refrigeration, and the Sami, the Scots and the peoples of the Baltic each arrived independently at the same three-part logic: salt draws out water, air forms a skin, smoke lays down a preservative varnish of phenols.
What began as survival became luxury in nineteenth-century London, when Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe brought their smoking craft to the East End and applied it to Scottish salmon rather than Baltic herring. That collision produced the style the world now calls 'London cure' — light salt, long cold smoke, silk texture — and it is the tradition this side is built on.
The London cure was refined by houses like H. Forman & Son, founded in 1905, and became a fixture of the grand hotel dining rooms — the Savoy, Claridge's, the Ritz. In the modern era, chefs such as Magnus Nilsson and René Redzepi returned smoking to its Nordic roots as a technique of flavour rather than storage, and the ultra-lean, ultra-cold approach they championed shapes how we run our own smokehouse.
How we make it
We buy whole sides at the height of the Bristol Bay run and cure them skin-on, packed flesh-to-flesh in a mixture that is roughly four parts salt to one part raw sugar. The juniper is cracked rather than ground; ground juniper turns resinous and dominates the fish within a day.
The pellicle stage is the one most producers skip. A side that goes into the smoker still wet will steam instead of absorbing, and the smoke sits on the surface as bitterness. Ours air-dry overnight on wire under a slow fan until the surface is tacky and matte — that skin is what holds eleven hours of alder without ever tasting of ash.
Dry cure, then cold smoke
36 hours cure · 11 hours smoke
01Sides are buried in coarse sea salt, raw sugar, crushed juniper and lemon zest for thirty-six hours.
02Rinsed, then air-dried overnight until a pellicle forms and the surface turns matte.
03Cold-smoked at 24°C over alder for eleven hours, rotated on the hour.
04Rested four days before slicing so the smoke settles into the fat.
Room temperature, sliced on the bias, with rye and cultured butter.
THE INGREDIENT LEDGER
Every defining ingredient, named: who grew or caught it, where, when it was taken, what it has meant to the people who kept it, and what it does for you.
Wild sockeye salmon
Late June 2025 run
Farm / fishery
Naknek set-net families, hand-picked
Region
Bristol Bay, Alaska
History
The Yup'ik and Alutiiq peoples have smoked this run for at least four thousand years, hanging split sides in driftwood smokehouses above the tide line.
Why it is good for you
Among the richest wild sources of long-chain omega-3s, with astaxanthin — the pigment that turns the flesh red — acting as a potent antioxidant.
Nutrition, roughly
Per 100 g: 208 kcal · 22 g protein · 13 g fat (2.3 g omega-3) · vitamin D, B12, selenium.
Alder wood
Cut winter 2024, dried through 2025
Farm / fishery
Coastal windfall, split and seasoned nine months
Region
Pacific Northwest
History
Alder is the smoke of the north Pacific: low in resin, sweet, and the only wood coastal peoples would let touch salmon.
Why it is good for you
A cold, clean smoke laid below 24°C, which flavours without charring — no high-heat char compounds.
Nutrition, roughly
Contributes flavour only; no measurable nutrition.
Grey sea salt & juniper
Salt raked August 2025 · berries picked October 2025
Farm / fishery
Solar salt pans; wild juniper picked by hand
Region
Brittany, France · Nordic uplands
History
Salt and juniper together are the oldest northern cure there is — Norse households packed fish in exactly this pair before the winter dark.
Why it is good for you
Unrefined salt keeps its trace minerals; juniper carries aromatic oils long used as a digestive.
Nutrition, roughly
Cure is largely rinsed away; residual sodium is modest for a smoked fish.
Nutrition figures are typical values for the ingredient itself and are given as a guide, not as a dietary claim. Harvest dates refer to the batch printed on your lid.
