An evening at Stephan Pyles’s new Flora Street Café has all the fine-dining hallmarks: the delicacies of bread service, of fine china and crystal and linen. An amuse-bouche of green poblano-asparagus flan may have tiny cubes of Texas watermelon and raw shaved rhubarb and asparagus—the microplane work meticulous and lovely, the flan silky and light.
The restaurant is elegant and, despite its elevated price point, whimsical; it fits the Arts District like a dream, with its polished play of color and light, its exercises in transparency. So much is visual. (I would elaborate, but better that you discover for yourself.) Nor is it easy to tell where the restaurant ends and the rest of the Arts District begins through those floor-to-ceiling windows, beyond that pale fringe of trees. Treat the experience like theater. And afterwards, in the cool of the night, wander to where the KPMG Plaza’s sculpture garden catches the moonlight that also sifts through a jungle of native grasses.
The cuisine, for all its technical exactitude, feels personal—and Texan. They nixtamalize corn for the masa they use in various and subtle ways. You will take home spiced, candied pecans as a parting gift. And smoke will most likely insinuate itself into part of your meal. (Certainly it will if you choose the smoked pecan sourdough boule from the tray of breads—I would.) The restaurant is a collaboration by a talented team, with, unequivocally, Pyles’s signature all over it.
On a big blue plate that fades to pale cornflower blue you may find pheasant, tender as veal, stuffed with epazote, a little herbaceous, and accompanied by baby turnips and blackberry three ways over a squash blossom quesadilla filled with Oaxaca cheese. Plantains and intriguing “chewy” beets—deep in flavor like jerky; they’ve been dehydrated—accompany lamb loin wrapped in hoja santa leaf, the aroma of the hoja santa leaf intensified by a good char from the open kitchen’s fire. The bed of rice is blackened with squid ink.
Desserts are a happy story, creations by pastry chef Ricardo Sanchez. A few highlights: the silky, feather-light hazelnut cremeux that is textural perfection. The way Sanchez marries hibiscus and cassis in the striking, berry-bright dessert in which berry-infused jicama strands give a slight crunch to a lofty cassis mousse topped with blackberries and blueberries over a cinnamon brown-butter shortbread biscuit. Hibiscus sorbet, cassis meringues, and passion fruit gelee finish the plated composition.
Like so much on the menu, the cocktails play on trends—smoky cocktails, sherry-based cocktails—but tell their own stories. The marigold cocktail with sherry and yellow chartreuse powerfully evokes the Mexican Day of the Dead. The young sommelier unearths intriguing finds.
Across the board, you’re dealing with talent. You’re reminded, too, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that fine dining is inherently, deliciously, theatrical.
(A full review will appear in the upcoming September issue of D Magazine, out later this month.)
