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 It should be a triumphant time for salt in New York. The biggest restaurant opening of the year has been that of Nusr-Et, better known as Salt Bae. It’s named for chef Nusret Gökçe, who accumulated 13 million Instagram followers—and the nickname Salt Bae—for his theatrical method of seasoning steaks. 
 
 Meanwhile, sugar has replaced salt to reign again as the most polarizing item in your pantry. (See: New York State Senate Bill S162, which proposes safety warnings for sugar-sweetened drinks.) 
 
 Not every restaurant offers this kind of seasoning opportunity. Photographer: Robert Sietsema 
 
 Salt even features in the décor at Chefs Club NYC, where a 1,300-pound chunk of pink Himalayan salt hangs above the dining room, encased in a glass box. 
 
 Yet there’s none on the tables below the display. A recent visit to the SoHo spot made me realize it’s been a long time since I’ve seen salt on a restaurant table in New York. 
 
 Salt shakers, once ubiquitous at fancy restaurants, have vanished. That’s deliberate, say top chefs, and there are a few explanations why. 
 
 Shakers Mostly Held Cheap Salt 
 
 The No. 1 reason salt shakers are gone is the quality of the product they held: fine, iodized salt that costs about $1 a pound at supermarkets and delivers a harsh blast of saline that can blemish the food it’s supposed to accent. In this era of elite seasonings, when a restaurant like Estiatorio Milos boasts of hand-harvested sea salt from the Greek islands, an old-school salt shaker isn’t retro—it’s shameful. “The days of those nasty little salt shakers with the ancient grains of rice are long gone,” declares Josh Capon of Bowery Meat Co. 
 
 There’s major salt on display—but none on the tables—at Chefs Club in New York’s SoHo. Source: Chefs Club 
 
 Chefs Don’t Like Ceding Control 
 
 Another reason salt isn’t immediately available to customers: As chefs have gained in fame, they want to be the ones adding it. “If you go to good restaurants, chefs like to be in charge of the seasoning,” says Capon. 
 
 The lack of salt within reach has become more striking as French restaurants have come back into vogue. If salt is missing, it’s more noticeable in an omelet or a roast chicken than in Mission Chinese Food’s spicy Chongqing chicken wings. 
 
 “I call it the big Dorito effect,” says chef Andrew Carmellini, whose restaurants include Locanda Verde, Little Park, and Brooklyn’s Leuca. “There’s been so much umami in foods, so much acid and heat, there’s no room for salt.” 
 
 Leuca offers salt on request. Photographer: Nick Solares 
 
 Tables Are Too Crowded 
 
 There’s no salt on the tables at Carmellini’s restaurants. He says all the waiter stations have it ready, on request. “At a restaurant like Locanda, where a lot of dishes like pasta and main courses are shared, and there’s so many plates and platters, it takes clutter off the table,” he says. 
 
 I keenly felt the absence of salt at Chefs Club NYC. The new chef-in-residence, Sota Atsumi, who made a name for himself at Paris’s Clown Bar, offers dishes such as “lobster with couscous and 40 spices.” In spite of the name, it needed seasoning. A modest amount of salt arrived in a small bowl; I almost had to ask for more. “What the chef-in-residence wants, the chef-in-residence gets,” says Aaron Arizpe, the culinary curator at Chefs Club. “That holds true down to every detail, including whether or not salt is on the table.” He adds that he personally appreciates salt on the table. “I go out to eat for pleasure, not moderation, and not an education. If I find it pleasurable to add salt to a dish, it should be my prerogative to do so.” 
 
 It’s Not a Good Look 
 
 There’s also the style quotient. No one has created an all-purpose replacement for those little shakers. Some chefs favor salt grinders, but that utilitarian aesthetic doesn’t work for every dining room. Others offer photogenic little bowls with flakes of pricey salt, such as Maldon. Those get expensive, since the salt has to be replaced for each new set of guests. They also get stolen. “Little dishes of salt tend to disappear,” says Capon. “It’s almost as if they have legs. People like small things.” 
 
 Chef David Burke concurs. “At a previous restaurant, we had beautiful salt and pepper shakers worth about $50 each at the tables,” he says. “They were almost all stolen within a few months. We learned our lesson.” 
 
 Salt is waiting for you when you sit down at Simon & the Whale. Source: Simon & the Whale 
 
 One of the few places in New York where salt was waiting when I sat down is the new Simon & the Whale, at the Freehand Hotel. Owner Gabriel Stulman offers it at all his restaurants, including Joseph Leonard and Fairfax. 
 
 “If I had to guess why you don’t see salt more often, I would say chef ego: ‘My food is seasoned; you don’t need to season it,’” says Stulman. He also notes how prohibitively expensive it is to throw out salt. “But you’re not going to keep salt on the table that someone you don’t know touched. That’s gross.” 
 
 There’s salt on the table at Eleven Madison Park, currently the world’s No. 1 restaurant. Chef Daniel Humm was so taken with the product he found years ago at the Amagansett Sea Salt Co., he now has a standing weekly order. 
 
 Note, however, that this lovely salt is served with EMP’s bread course. And then it’s whisked away. ||||| TIME Health For more, visit TIME Health 
 
 Pink salt is everywhere: in salt grinders, craggy-looking lamps, sunset-hued slabs designed for cooking steak and even in “salt rooms” at spas. But is pink Himalayan salt worth all the attention? We checked out the science behind this recent health phenomenon. 
 
 The thing: Pink Himalayan salt is made from rock crystals of salt that have been mined from areas close to the Himalayas, often in Pakistan. It gets its rosy hue from trace minerals in the salt, like magnesium, potassium and calcium. Pink salt is often found as smaller crystals in salt grinders, as large, glowing pink or orange chunks in pink Himalayan salt lamps and in the walls of “salt chambers” at spas that promise an instant detox. 
 
 The hype: People claim the salt does all kinds of things. It’s rumored to be healthier for its greater concentration of trace elements. In lamp form, companies claim that it eases symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), increases energy and improves sleep by cleansing the air from pollutants like dust and pollen. It supposedly does this by absorbing water molecules from the air and releasing negative air ions, which are said to get rid of particles like dust that can cause respiratory problems, like allergies and asthma, and affect mood. Spas have also jumped on these claims to offer Himalayan salt-based therapies, where people sit in rooms and breathe deeply while tiny particles of salt are dispersed into the surrounding areas, ostensibly easing respiratory conditions. 
 
 “Marketers tout their supposed ability to release negative ions that may enhance physical and emotional health,” says Dr. Andy Weil, the founder and program director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. This is based on the idea that air near moving water contains high levels of negative ions, which some researchers have suggested is one reason why spending time in nature has been linked to health benefits. Whether a man-made product can produce the same effect, however, is more dubious. 
 
 The research: Some data suggests that blasts of positive ions—like those from electronics or hot air— may impair mood and physical health by increasing feelings of stress and anxiety, and some studies show that negative ions in the air may do the opposite and improve people’s mood. But this is not a definitive claim—and pink salt lamps have not been shown in studies to generate negative ions, anyway. “There is no scientific support for such claims related to Himalayan salt lamps,” says Weil. 
 
 Even air purifiers that do generate negative air ions—so-called “ionizers”—are typically too small to be effective, and experts don’t recommend them. The salt lamps may also come with a major unrelated downside. In January, 80,000 pink Himalayan salt lamps were recalled after it was discovered that they could shock people and catch fire. 
 
 As for the edible salt, some argue that it tastes better than the regular white variety when used in cooking, and that may well be true for some people. “All salts vary somewhat with respect to trace mineral content and texture,” says Weil. Proponents claim that pink salt has more minerals than typical salt—but you aren’t likely to get any extra health perks from eating it, Weil says. Pink Himalayan salt is nutritionally very similar to regular salt. It’s just prettier and more expensive. 
 
 Salt therapies at spas are also not yet backed by solid evidence. “Salt therapy has been used and debated for centuries in medical practice, but it’s been more recently used as a complementary or alternative medicine practice,” says Dr. Lily Pien, an allergist at Cleveland Clinic. “At this time, it has not been definitely studied, and the true benefits are not well known.” One possible benefit of the therapy may not come from the salt at all, she says. Giving yourself 30-45 minutes of quiet time is a known stress reliever. 
 
 The bottom line: If you want to add a pinch of pink salt to your food, go ahead, but you probably won’t reap any special health benefits. There’s even less evidence for basking in the glow of a pink Himalayan salt lamp or indulging in a salt-based spa treatment. The most you’ll get out of this rock is eye candy, says Weil. “Some feel it offers decorative value,” he says, but don’t expect much else.
– Poor, ordinary, white salt. It's rapidly disappearing from restaurant tables, and Bloomberg has some theories as to why. For starters, old-fashioned iodized salt has increasingly been replaced by exotic seasonings, a trend that makes the simple salt shaker a thing of the past. "The days of those nasty little salt shakers with the ancient grains of rice are long gone," Josh Capon of Bowery Meat Co. tells Bloomberg. The rise of the celebrity chef has also hurt, with chefs feeling protective of their carefully crafted dishes made with the best ingredients. For some restaurants, it's just a matter of simplifying the table. Salt shakers clutter things up, particularly if there are many shared dishes and small plates. Plain table salt has also been muscled aside by sexy designer rivals, such as pink Himalayan salt. The exotic pink crystals, often mined in Pakistan, get their color from trace minerals, like magnesium, potassium, and calcium, which look nice in a grinder but aren’t any healthier, reports Time. Some upscale restaurants are offering exotic salts in grinders, or better still, little bowls, but the little bowls are problematic because they have to be replaced after each customer to avoid transmitting germs. "You’re not going to keep salt on the table that someone you don't know touched," says one restaurant owner. "That's gross." Another problem with the little bowls is that they tend to mysteriously vanish when the customer leaves. "People like small things," observes Capon.