Florentin delivers stylish modern Mediterranean cafe fare in Delmar Maker District
By now, you can make a few assumptions walking into a new Ben Poremba restaurant. The décor will verge on set design. A familiar or even overly familiar dish will be reinvigorated through technique or an unexpected ingredient — say, that punchline of every exhausted joke about millennials, avocado toast, transformed into eggplant toast.
And when the menu says an omelet features "all the herbs," it means all the herbs. As in, the primary color of the Persian omelet at Florentin is green, or greens: the vibrant green of fresh herbs mounded atop the omelet and the earthier green of herbs baked onto the omelet's surface.
Florentin, which opened in June on the Central West End side of Delmar Boulevard, is the second restaurant Poremba has debuted this year, following the exceptional Esca just across the street. This duo is part of Poremba's ambitious bet on the so-called Delmar Maker District along Delmar between Kingshighway and Union boulevards. In addition to the new Florentin and Esca, Poremba is relocating his flagship duo of Elaia and Olio and his Mexican restaurant Nixta to this district.
(All three of those restaurants closed their original Botanical Heights locations at the end of last year.)
If you miss the casual excellence of Olio especially keenly, I bring good news — and not simply that Florentin has been hosting a series of Olio pop-ups. Florentin isn't Olio 2.0, not least because it isn't open for dinner and doesn't feature wine or cocktails, let alone a program to match Olio's selection. Still, in its botanical décor and Israeli-inspired fare, Florentin just might sate your hankering for Olio until that restaurant's return, which is currently slated for next spring.
You will find a few Olio favorites here, like the best falafel in St. Louis (by far) and the airy, oblong, whisperingly sweet Jerusalem bagel. You can order this bagel a la carte, as you could at Olio, but at Florentin I ordered the version slathered with creamy smoked whitefish, topped with very thin slices of crisp radish and brightened with chives and lemon zest. It hits the breakfast sweet spot: a full, savory dish that isn't too heavy on the palate or the stomach.
A few weeks ago, I named the 20 best breakfast dishes in St. Louis right now. I probably should have waited until I'd finished my visits to Florentin. The Jerusalem bagel with smoked whitefish is a strong contender, as is that Persian omelet. Underneath all the herbs is a relatively compact disc with the texture of fluffy scrambled eggs. The herbs — primarily dill to my taste, though not overwhelmingly so — lead the dish's flavor, but the omelet sits atop a cucumber-tinged yogurt that provides a tangy and refreshingly cool counterpoint.
Florentin's eggplant toast brings you eggplant two ways: a rustic sweet-and-sour preparation and as baba ganoush. On one slice of toast, a scoop of the sweet-and-sour eggplant sits on a spread of baba ganoush; on the second of two slices, these roles are reversed. Drizzled on top of both are tahini and pomegranate molasses. In both versions, the smoky charred-eggplant essence of baba ganoush is just present enough to round out the more sweet than sour preparation.
Florentin isn't a vegetarian restaurant, per se, but meat is scarce on the menu. There is puffy grilled pita (you might remember this bread from Olio or Poremba's recently closed Maplewood restaurant the Benevolent King) stuffed with lamb kefta. Tender Merguez-style lamb sausage lends funky heft to the "deluxe" version of Florentin's shakshuka, the classic dish of eggs baked in a sauce of tomatoes with chiles and garlic cooked down to a jammy thickness. A generous garnish of feta cheese is as distinctive a flavor here as the lamb.
If this were a video game, I might argue that with Florentin, Poremba is operating on easy mode creatively. The nudge from Olio is significant, and his aesthetic as both a chef and restaurateur is readymade for a contemporary cafe zhuzhed up for Instagram and TikTok.
Will it be more interesting to visit Florentin a year from now, when Olio has presumably reopened in its new digs a little farther west on Delmar and Florentin will need to define itself in contrast with, not in comparison to, the older, popular restaurant?
Maybe, though with its predominantly vegetarian menu, its cafe format — a full coffee bar and a selection of house-blended juices — and the latest iteration of Poremba's style, Florentin has already distinguished itself.
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