Flor is the Karangahape Rd restaurant where courgettes are living their best life. Photo / Babiche Martens
It looked like a kid’s craft project gone wrong. It tasted like absolutely nothing restaurant critic Kim Knight had eaten before. She can’t wait to go back.
“Have you been here before?” asked the waitperson.
Yes. And no. The narrow Karangahape Rd restaurant with the mosaic floor is in its third incarnation in four years. I loved it when it was Clay and really loved it when it was Alta. Now it’s called Flor, and please let this be for keeps because I want to eat here again and again and again.
This is one of those restaurants where the familiar becomes wondrous, where everything the chefs touch turns to gold. (Literally. We had marigold icecream for dessert and I am still thinking about the sweet-savoury interplay that flicked across my tastebuds like a demented dream that I couldn’t quite pin down).
Edamame congee was not, I confess, on my must-eat list. It arrived as a bowl of messy white-and-green gloop — a kid’s craft project gone wrong; a textured ceiling treatment circa 1992. Reframe this visual as a satiny sea with emerald islands of edamame and sliced french beans and tangles of shredded, lightly pickled cabbage. It smelled like chicken. The frizzled crunchy brown bits on the top tasted like chicken.
“Is this vegetarian,” I asked, dubiously. Absolutely. The “chicken” was yeast and the “congee” was nothing like the porridgy savoury rice I had been expecting. Had the smooth, cream-thick base been made with rice milk, at least? Yes, said the waitperson, but he may have been sparing my dignity. I’d already been laughed at when I asked if there was Szechuan pepper in the deep-fried baby octopus: “The chef says no, because Szechuan is disgusting.” (Later, I learned the kick in that highly recommended dish comes courtesy of two types of chilli and a wasabi powder the kitchen makes from scratch).
“I’ve never had octopus like that,” said James during our trip home. “Or marigold icecream. Or congee. Or that duck ...”
The wizardry makes sense when you learn the chefs are ex-Pasture, the Parnell restaurant that, before its sudden closure last year, was Auckland’s most intensely interesting fine dining proposition.
Understanding the who’s who (and where and why) of this city’s hospo scene can sometimes feel like a complicated genealogical project. Flor is operated by Dan Gillett (Everyday Wine and Wine Diamonds) who lost a liquor customer in Pasture but gained its chefs Tushar Grover and Josh Letele when he employed them in his own restaurant. Meanwhile, recent news that Grover has just opened the soon-to-be all-day eatery Rhu in Pasture’s former sister site Alpha does not, says, Gillett, mean he’s leaving Flor.
Or you could just ignore all of that and order the congee. Also, the courgette that is a finely sliced triumph in which the vegetable shines texturally and does that thing it does the very best — carry the flavour of whatever else these ridiculously clever chefs have added to the mix (goat cheese, definitely; witchcraft, possibly).
When the most average thing you eat at a restaurant is a salad made from cucumber, melon, peanut and — where did they magic these up from in almost March? — fresh cherries, you know you’re somewhere special. The thin-stemmed glassware and lipped ceramic plates are a delight to sip and sup from. The playlist was jazz and soul but, like the congee, confounded expectations (”great B sides,” James pronounced). A single waitperson worked the entire room. He told us “they poached me from my table”. Quite simply, he ate there so often, they had to hire him. If his confidence was catching, his ability to upsell raw fish on a dreary Sunday was quite extraordinary. And so was the fish — cut generously thick and served in a tomato-infused dashi spruiked with basil oil.
I saw the kitchen set fire to the duck. At this point, the kitchen could have set fire to my handbag and I’d have said thank you. The duck skin was like a shiny black lacquer box; the interior juicy but firm. I tried to find the right words. “Raw but cured but cooked?” It came with lettuce leaves, nasturtium petals and a lavender dressing because potatoes are for a different kind of restaurant where the icecream — also highly recommended — is not infused with marigold.
Flor, 366 Karangahape Rd, Auckland, offers a la carte shared small and large plates, salads and desserts ($9-$44) or an $85 “let us feed you” menu with an optional $60 drinks match.
Kim Knight has been a restaurant critic for the Weekend Herald’s Canvas magazine since 2016. She holds a master’s degree in gastronomy, and in 2023 was named one of New Zealand’s top 50 most influential and inspiring women in food and drink.
by Yvonne Lorkin
I seem to always be grizzling about how so many restaurants offer so little in the way of wines by the glass. Or, when they do, the list seems to be set in stone, stagnating over time with the same-old, same-olds that you see in every other joint. Not so here at Flor. Their website states that their by-the-glass menu changes every week. Every week! That’s both really exciting and a little tricky, because I could recommend trying something today but it might not be available on the day you book. Risk you take, I guess. Flor specialises in pouring hard-to-find, lesser-known wines from home and away and they mostly swing on the natural, organic, biodynamic branches of the tree. Feeling fizzy, try a Jumping Juice pet nat from the Adelaide Hills. Sauvignon fan? Get a glass of Les Cailloux du Paradis Quartz from the Loire. How about a blend of merlot, tempranillo and pinot noir from Hawke’s Bay? At $14 a glass, the Selection Massale will sort you. They also whip out special, one-off, by-the-glass offerings every night because they have the advantage of being a double-whammy wine bar and wine retailer, selling instore and online via Everydaywine under the expert taste buds of Dan Gillet from Wine Diamonds. “Plus we have a little rotation of wines open that aren’t listed,” he says. “Customers just describe to our staff what they’re looking for and we’ll pull something nice out.” I love that. Dan’s bottle list for Flor is long. A liquid version of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, if you will. There’s a link to Dan’s list on Flor’s website and I implore you to check it out before visiting to get your head around all the treasures that await.
Going up the slide is okay, actually. (Sometimes.)