Cafe’s quaint charm enhances splendid pastries, sandwiches
While sitting in a great little new cafe recently, the potent aroma of multiple flower bouquets entwining with the scent of freshly baked rolls and pastries reminded me of a line from an old poem: “Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!”
That I was thinking about the James Oppenheim poem "Bread and Roses," in a cafe called Flowers & Bread, was not lost on me. Also not lost: I’ve been impressed by almost everything I’ve sampled from this charming newcomer.
Flowers & Bread, which enjoys an address seemingly destined by fate — across the street from the Park of Roses in Clintonville — is a multipurpose facility. That’s not a surprise when you consider that it’s the brainchild of a multifaceted duo: edible Columbus editor-publisher Tricia Wheeler and edible Columbus contributor Sarah Lagrotteria.
Wheeler also owns the nearby Seasoned Farmhouse — a self-described “recreational cooking school” — and Lagrotteria, a trained chef, has previously taught writing at Stanford University and been a publicist for celebrity chef Mario Batali.
In one room of their new business collaboration, flower arrangement is taught. Another chamber hosts baking classes. Upstairs, elaborate dinners occasionally take place. This review concerns only the cafe on the first floor.
That cafe occupies a quaint little space where sunlight streams onto stark white walls, fresh flowers in pewter-cup vases perfume every round gray table, and a tasteful soundtrack of jazz standards features crooning by the likes of Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney.
Customers line up in an even smaller room facing this seating area to choose lovely pastries from a display case and savory items from a cooler. Daily soups are also available, and the two I tried were excellent: potato sage, with a velvety texture; and peppery Manhattan clam chowder, with a delightful — and relatively light — creamy tomato base.
At $8 each, these soups are expensive, but they’re delicious and come with a nifty, sesame-seeded “sunflower roll” that, for a worthwhile 50 cents more, can be embellished with terrific house-made butter.
Five sandwiches are offered, too. The superb yeasty loaves called ficelles — think thin baguettes — with crackly-yet-chewy shells are the best part of these sandwiches, but what they house inside isn’t bad, either.
My favorite sandwich is the smoked salmon ($9), with not-too-salty fish, capers, cream cheese and scallions. Fans of an iconic French sandwich — the jambonbeurre — will find a winning version of that simple hamand-butter ensemble perked up with cornichons and smoked deli meat ($8).
Brie cheese and coarse, smoky-sweet bacon jam enhance the smoked-turkey sandwich ($9), and the roasted-veggies sandwich ($8) receives smoky notes from grilled mushrooms and zucchini, which effectively play off a sweet-tangy house pepper jelly, arugula and a “feta-yogurt spread.”
Among the uniformly great pastries I’ve sampled are a savory focaccia roll ($3.50) with tapenade, asparagus, rosemary and a killer cheesefortified crust nearly as crisp as a cracker; a wonderful tart cherry hot-cross bun ($3) offering a typically restrained sweetness; an intense buttermilk-chocolate bundt cake ($3.50), with no not available for cafe; see website for class schedule and ticket availability yes none excellent baked goods are the star of a multi-purpose new teachingand-eating facility a molten dark-chocolate center; a fantastic coffee cream scone ($3.50); and a dense-yet-springy, knockout zucchini-carrot cake ($4) topped with a fluffy whipped cream-cheese frosting.
These can be enjoyed with beverages such as a frothy double cappuccino ($4); a huge cup of strong-and-dark, not-bitter coffee made with beans from Backroom Coffee Roasters of Galena; and a blooming tea ($4) that, as its herb-and-floral leaves slowly expand in a transparent glass of hot water, looks and tastes like an unfolding flower.