Fabulous homemade pasta at Flour & Grape

Flour & Grape is the new kid on the Bermondsey Street block. Located in what used to be Antico (another Italian restaurant we loved) it was pleasantly familiar when we stepped inside on a Saturday for lunch. The decor is largely the same, with a few changes here and there. The most notable is the trays of fresh pasta which greet you in the window as you approach the entrance.

We had only recently discovered Antico and had been a couple of times before it closed. It had even made my list of our favourite Italian restaurants in London and no sooner had I pushed ‘publish’, I discovered it had closed. So off it came. So when I spotted Flour & Grape in restaurant reviewer Laura Millar’s Instagram Stories, I was delighted! A new Italian restaurant to try and perhaps add to our favourites list. This was a few months ago and I hadn’t got round to booking a table so when I saw Laura’s review in the Metro it prompted me to book immediately.

Now you know you’re going to enjoy a restaurant when you tweet that you’re excited about going and three food bloggers reply with how much they love it.

https://twitter.com/LondonKirsty/status/959383287348236288

So, on to the food. The menu is not huge, which is a good thing. It’s divided into small plates and pasta – that’s it. Flour & Grape also has a wine bar and they have suggested wine pairings for each dish on the menu. We stuck to our favourites though, which was an Aperol Spritz and then prosecco.

To start, we ordered the bread selection, the salumi, the celeriac salad and the burrata with prosciutto braciotto to share between us. The bread selection with olive oil was so good. The focaccia in particular was absolutely delicious and so fresh.

The salumi consisted of prosciutto crudo, mortadella with truffle and salami. Mortadella is from Bologna, where my husband is from, and is definitely my favourite of the salumi selection. The burrata was so creamy and tasty but I didn’t really like it with the prosciutto braciotto, which I found a bit dry. I definitely would have preferred tomatoes.

The celeriac salad was a bit of a surprise. On the menu it said it was celeriac with apple and radish so I was expecting it to be quite fresh and tangy with a bit of citrus. It actually had a mustard dressing, which was quite hot. Whilst it was not what I was expecting, I did actually really enjoy it.

My husband ordered the tagliolini with butter emulsion, preserved truffle and cured egg yolk whilst I ordered the tortelloni with roast pork shoulder and sage butter.

The tagliolini was a hit with my husband as he was commenting on how nice it was even after we’d left. I had a mouthful and concur that it was delicious.

My tortelloni were perfectly al dente and perfectly seasoned. They were excellent and got the seal of approval from my husband, who happily tried one.

We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at Flour & Grape and will definitely be returning. It’s so reasonably priced too as our entire meal (4 small plates, 2 pastas, 1 Aperol Spritz, 3 glasses of prosecco, a macchiato and service) came to less than £80.

Bermondsey is such a lovely area too if you want to explore afterwards or just go for a walk to work off some of the pasta!