Flour & Grape
Naming your restaurant after ingredients can work out well. Look at burger and lobster, serving burger and lobster. Bubbledogs serving champagne and hotdogs. Or perhaps most descriptively of all, Kentucky fried chicken serving Kentucky fried chicken.
So I guess that when all else fails and you are scratching your head for a name for your restaurant, you could always name it from the two ingredients which a great number of things on the menu are derived from. Flour and grape. Then again, they could have called it foodstuffs, although that might not roll off the tongue as well.
Flour & Grape. Just in case you missed it, scrawled artfully on the wall, this was a proper place to indulgence in two things of much importance to man. The source of many foods (flour) and the fount of many drinks (grape). As I was reminded when I arrived, you have strictly 90 minutes to eat. Better get to it then.
Burrata, prosciutto braciotto. Creamy cheese, alright ham, this was a decent start.
Bruschetta, nduja, caramelised onion. Although it was in a heart shape, I wasn’t really feeling the love. When I have had nduja before, its poignant taste would permeate the bread and welcome me with a taste explosion. Here it was rather more subdued, not bad, just subdued.
Tortelloni, roasted pork shoulder, sage butter. This was where the magic started. Delicate small parcels of pork, infused with butter, these were a tasty treat which went down most satisfactory. Of particular note was the pasta, firm but softly yielding when you bit in.
Linguine, gurnard, tomato, chilli, garlic. Interesting fish pasta. Usually, I would see prawn, lobster or crab pasta rather than fish. Although this was good, I think there are reasons for the usual choice. A different seafood might have suited more as its the lightness of its tastes seemed somewhat subsumed. The pasta was good though.
Fazzoletti, spinach, mascarpone, nutmeg. Light and fresh. Delightful pasta sheets. Spinach and cheese on top rather more ordinary. Probably the weakest of the three pastas.
Almond and prune tart with creme fraiche. In case you are wondering, that reflection is not me. It is someone else I know. Yet, that is distracting away from the point. The tart’s crust was firm and delicious, (where DO they get their flour?) the tart sweet without being overly cloying. The creme fraiche was creme fraiche, nothing extraordinary here. A fairly decent end to the meal.
I should have guessed that the name hinted at something. Obvious attention had be placed in the flour derivatives. The pasta sheets (and the tart crust), were where the magic lies. Nice environment too (even if they did try to hurry me along at the start). Then again, I can’t complain too much as, although the pasta may not be as good as Padella, you can book this place and avoid the queue. As for the second part of the name, grape, that was sadly wasted on me as I do not drink wine. So I’ll have to take a pass on that.
A quiet eating 7/10.
Lunch (3 courses) was GBP 25 excluding drinks and service.
214 Bermondsey St,
London SE1 3TQ