We were hugely excited to visited Flor this week, due to being familiar with the team from designing their Michelin starred restaurant Lyles, and the positive roar of approval the restaurant, bakery and wine bar has received from critics.
Gracefully located on the outer rim of Borough Market, Flor is a welcoming calm from the stampede of tourists, clatter of suits and swarming spectacle of Harry Potter film location tour-goers. Stepping into Flor, you find yourself immediately in the gentle throng of a warm-hearted and wholesome restaurant. The space is small, and the open kitchen on the ground floor dominates in a productive market-esque flurry. Here, versed chefs yell numbers, curt instructions and - jauntily-authentic - one straddled a stool with a bucket of huge prawns atop his lap, as he riffled through.
Patrons sat next to the prawn-bucketed-chef along the bar, that flows around the kitchen, surveying the performance and leisurely sipping their wine. The walls are left bear with faded red bricks and subtle traditional materials of marble and leather have been used to compose the restaurant to appear timelessly supple. The decorative centre piece - apart from the kitchen and bar’s bottle filled gantry - are a series of simple hanging orb lights.
We are led up a steep spiral iron staircase to another jovial but calmer second dining space, where the decor from below has been extended. This area is quieter and facilities an intimacy with your dining partner and food, which we welcome.
A well inked and warn denim wearing waiter leads us through the day’s menu, recommending that we order 5 to 6 dishes to share between the two of us. Exceptional dishes were the coco bean and nasturtium broth, the burrata with beans, peach and fennel blossom and the lamb rib with black lime and pistachios. The bakery items are also delicious, and we discussed that we would go back just for the bread and butter and girolles flatbread. The food is served on matte tactile ceramics and is presented more meadow than formal garden, epitomizing the bona fide Look and Feel of Flor.
Flor is exceptional, in that we truly felt that we would be drawn to go any moment in the day- for coffee and pastries, for a light lunch, a heavy lunch, an after-work drink or a late-night meal. There are not many restaurants that actually work all-day without a clunky or stretching to it period, but Flor is a perfect example. We are very lucky for our neighbourly location to the restaurant and will surely be popping by frequently.
