Jesse Mulligan’s Auckland Restaurant Review: Karangahape Rd’s Flor Is So Much More Than A Wine Bar

FLOR

Cuisine: Bistro

Address: 366 Karangahape Rd, CBD

Phone: 020 592 42893

Website: 366krd.co.nz

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: “Feed me” menu $80pp

Rating: 18/20

Karangahape Rd is so good right now that if you sent it to the restaurant Olympics against every other city in New Zealand it would come second, behind Auckland.

In fact would Auckland even get the gold medal if it didn’t have K Rd on its team? Hard to say. Hard to say anything about this hypothetical sports tournament which seemed like a good way to talk about K Rd but is already getting bogged down in administrative difficulties.

The worst thing you can say about K Rd is that only a certain sort of restaurant seems to thrive here. I loved what the chef was doing at Alta but it may have been a bit too fancy for the locals — cold, cubed beef mixed with green-lipped mussels perhaps tastes better than it sounds. And you really did feel like you were out for a sit-down dinner there — I think sometimes Millennials like to be tricked into dinner, by booking a table at a “bar” and then ordering three courses like it has only just occurred to them that they might start feeling a bit hungry around dinner time.

Even the new Orphan’s Kitchen (which I’ll review next week) is pitched as a “wine bar with delicious snacks”, as if even using the word “restaurant” requires a level of commitment nobody has the emotional capacity for in late-2023.

Alta is now Flor, a wine bar, and the change seems to be working because it was full when I arrived. I was shown to a not-very-cosy-but-serviceable spillover area out back, which is technically heated but is also pretty much outdoors, so bring a coat. It’s also the entrance to the toilets and a few minutes here provided pretty good people-watching, including one young gentleman who’d arrived for dinner dressed like Sam Smith at this year’s Brit Awards.

Once seated it becomes clear very quickly that this is not a bar kitchen, but a fully operational, highly aspirational team of proper chefs. The abrupt disappearance of Pasture in June left some extremely talented people out of work and Flor is the beneficiary here, employing rising stars Tushar Grover and Josh Letele to run the food.

The menu is a long list of goodies but I strongly recommend you choose the “feed me” option and leave things in the hands of the chefs. They started us on oysters — a pair of fat Matukus in their shells — one cold with a house mignonette and the other warm, with walnut milk and a hint of lavender.

That aside, the food is fantastically good — as good as any other restaurant in the city. There are meaty mains but also clever, delicious vegetables — that courgette comes cold like a cucumber, concertina sliced on an almond cream and soft feta. Then there’s the “edamame congee” — savoury porridge with fresh, finely sliced green beans and toasted nutritional yeast: the vegan’s parmesan.

READ: Candela Brings A Distinct Spanish Flavour To Karangahape Rd

But the meat courses really stand out — the duck is the most delicious version of that bird I think I’ve ever had. Roasted and juicy, it’s cooked just beyond pink and sliced thinly across the grain — crispy on the outside, with a stern watercress salad for balance.

The snapper is a revelation. They cook it like I’ve never seen before, searing the skin side only so you can see the gradation of colour in the flesh. Visually it reminded me most of the outer layer of good ham — dark skin, then a little band of white giving way to beautifully pink meat. The fillet is sliced thick and placed on a rich, smoked butter sauce then scattered with plump pink salmon caviar.

“You can get this sort of thing overseas,” said my dining companion who eats around the world. “But it would cost you five hundred quid.”

Not here, where it is 80 bucks a head. Eighty bucks a head to eat a degustation meal created from New Zealand’s finest produce, by two of our top chefs. There are several courses but the whole thing feels light — fresh and starch-conscious. And yes, the wine is fantastic — it is a wine bar, after all.

Make plans to come here but don’t treat the food as an afterthought. They may play it down in the marketing but this is one of Auckland’s great kitchens — and these dishes are only going to taste better as the weather warms up.

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