Much like a restaurant review, wellness is subjective.

And to be frank, what makes many people feel well, in particular when they’re easing into the idea of spending $195 on 32 ounces of meat, is booze.

But when Alex Ekbatani opened the Ette Hotel in 2022, they didn’t serve any.

Ette, which is an acronym for “earthy, true, timeless and elegant,” was conceived as a wellness hotel, Ekbatani tells me, and so, zero-alcohol it was. As such, he hired one of the world’s foremost mixologists from Amsterdam to curate an array of elaborate, showstopper mocktails that were widely publicized around town, including in the Orlando Sentinel.

Customers were permitted to bring their own wines (sans corkage fee) and even their own spirits, but our server noted with an amusing and skillful improv of a guest cradling an imaginary bottle, many of them felt weird about it.

Others who showed up eager to sample items like chef Akira Back’s signature AB tuna pizza flat-out left after hearing they couldn’t get a drink.

And so, when the bar went native roughly two months ago, business, he told us, definitely picked up.

This pleases me.

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Because I paid $28 for a Negroni at the Tampa Edition hotel a few months ago — admittedly not without a quick flash of nausea — and for $4 less at the Ette, my Moonchild cocktail (now with tequila!!) featured a spectacle that saw our small table literally draped with rolling, enchanted-forest-level mist in which Stevie Nicks would be proud to shake a tambourine.

Also now, chef Théo Goupil’s take on Akira Back’s world-class menu can not only take center stage, but have many more guests sticking around to enjoy it.

“That pizza is genius,” says Goupil, whose resume isn’t too shabby. He’s been at the helm at Salt & The Cellar for 10 months, but his Orlando story is six years running with the now-shuttered Winter Park’s Financier Bistro & Bar a Vin (it opened as Financier Pâtisserie). Before that, he was the executive pastry chef at the lauded New York City location, a self-taught legacy whose father, too, worked in pastry.

“I identify as a pastry chef,” Goupil jokes, “but I haven’t really been a pastry chef for about five years. And I didn’t know if chef Akira had any pastry background, but with this pizza, he’s working very much in the way a pastry chef would in terms of how it’s being produced.”

How it is presented and consumed is the guests’ pleasure as they lift a delicate slice from the formidable “pie” and set it on sleek black crescent plates. Lovely, pink tuna, frozen and cut with a deli slicer to achieve an almost meltaway-thin construct, melds with truffle oil Goupil has sourced and re-sourced until the perfect level of light-garlicky was discovered.

If you visit for the hotel bar’s new social hour from 4-7 p.m., make this your go-to accompaniment.

For lunch or dinner (or something vegetarian — there’s not too much in that vein now, but Goupil is looking to expand veg and plant-based options), the spinach “oshitashi” ($26) is splendid from plate to palate, with compressed, cuke-wrapped spinach that read like forest green maki balanced amid a plate of dressing that’s deconstructed into abstract art. Just don’t make the mistake of eating it “pretty.”

For Goupil, this salad paired with some fish, sea bass he suggests, would make a wonderful non-traditional lunch.

“The creamy nuttiness of the sesame dressing,” he murmurs. It really is something else. “It’s beautiful, and then it just gets destroyed and looks like a blob on a plate.” He’s not lying, but trust your servers as they do the dirty work for you. This is how it eats best.

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As for fish, we went for the miso cod ($42), which I’d call marshmallowy, but the level of disintegration that happens here needs its own new word. Marinated in a den miso of sake, sugar, mirin and white miso paste, the cod — on which a smidge of skin is left (one of the best bites of the plate, IMO) — is cooked by direct and indirect heat, glazed and caramelized.

It leans a tad sweet, but served alongside citrusy yuzu foam so realistic, it seems scooped from the place where the sea meets sand, it achieves a nice balance.

The “cellar” here may have wine in it now, but like many words, cellar has multiple definitions. Here, it refers to the gilded, painted oyster shells, which serve as cellars for the salt. We chose three to pair with the NY strip ($68).

Some have aromas — the hickory, for example — but we passed on familiarity for other selections, like bamboo and grape, which brought out unique flavors from the beautifully cooked, 14-ounce cut.

Sides like spicy kimchi Brussels ($14) and a complex and layered vegetable fried rice ($18) round out the table nicely.

“It probably took me 60 orders to get that right,” Goupil confesses, noting that without a proper wok station, heat regulation was a challenge. Repetition, though, clearly pays dividends. We spooned it out happily.

“We wanted the restaurant to be an experience that was upscale but not uptight,” says Ektabani. With its family-style, shareable M.O., Salt & The Cellar hit that mark easily. Service here, too, was exemplary, and its importance is not lost on the chef.

“It’s 50 percent of the experience, if not more,” Goupil says. “If you have bad service, you’re left with a bad taste in your mouth even if the food is amazing.”

The food was spectacular, and I agree — so, I’ll shout out Paul for making our evening better than the schmancy cocktail preso, the tuna pizza or the AB cigar ($18) could have done on their own.

This dessert is another signature, one that Goupil wouldn’t touch, even with his pastry chef hands.

Astonishingly realistic, the creamy, chocolate-encased passionfruit mousse comes complete with silvery cacao nibs that double as ash, the adorable AB “cigar band” an extra whimsical touch that these days call for photos.

“People pick it up and pose like it’s a real cigar, and then they take a bite,” Goupil laughs.

Whether or not you’re “that guy,” this dessert is an undeniable fire end to a meal that’s smokin’, end to end.

If you go

Salt & The Cellar: Located inside the Ette Hotel, 3001 Sherbeth Road in Kissimmee, 407-288-1919; saltandthecellar.com

Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.