Da Flora Review

Da Flora served us a pleasing, balanced, comforting meal of Italian food. (Note: though comforting, it adamantly was not "comfort food.") Despite the wonderful atmosphere and quality food, two of the three of us wouldn't return, mostly because there was nothing that truly excited us. In a surprising twist, Ow, usually our harshest critic, was the happiest and would return.

It was rainy, subdued night. After hunting for street parking in North Beach, we parked in a lot that turned out to be across the street from the restaurant. We almost missed the entrance--the restaurant's sign is on the window, not above the door.

Da Flora itself was atmospheric. Decorated in red and maroon and lit by an unobtrusive chandelier, candles on each table, candles in sconces mounted on the wall, and a large candle in the middle of the room, the place felt like a sitting room / whiskey room. Model sailing ships dotted the cross beam. The quiet murmur of conversation filled the room. We sat by one of the windows nicely draped with curtains, in our case overlooking Columbus and some mundane side street.

After perusing the hard-to-read, handwritten menus, we ordered. To start, we had 

• "Artichokes stuffed with black spiced olives and bread crumbs with a lemon aioli and thinly sliced Speck." (Speck is a type of prosciutto.) The best thing about the dish was the Speck, with its balance of smokey and salty. When finishing the plate, we discovered the remains of the artichokes and crumbs were better than the rest of the dish, perhaps because they were laying in the lemon aioli.

• "Arugula with cara cara oranges, shaved fennel, grana cheese in a champagne shallot vinaigrette." (A cara cara orange is a red-fleshed navel orange.) Ow tried it first and immediately said, "this is good." We generally agreed, though less emphatically. The fennel kind of worked here, perhaps because it was in small quantities.

• Sweet potato gnocchi in a cream sauce with bacon. Can you go wrong with these ingredients? The gnocchi were amazingly light and fluffy--in fact, the lightest I've ever seen (and I thought nothing would ever beat a particular Google chef's entry into this mental tally of mine). And the bacon certainly didn't detract from the dish. Although we wouldn't rave about the dish as a whole, we'd be really happy if we cooked it ourselves. Oj discovered he preferred soaking up the cream sauce with the focaccia than the gnocchi itself.

Speaking of which, we got an order of focaccia with each round of dinner. The focaccia, although weighty from olive oil, was light and perfectly salted. It served as a terrific palate cleanser.

For our mains, we got 

• "Meyer lemon risotto with fresh fava beans, fava leaves, and crisped green garlic." It smelled good (from the garlic) when was it was delivered. My compatriots enjoyed it, though it was too intensely lemony for me. (They said they understand my reaction, but didn't have the same complaint.) Oj liked it, noting the lemon reminded him a soup his mother used to be make.

• "Seared day boat scallops with sweet pea puree, roast tree oyster mushrooms, and baby leek vinaigrette." These were beautifully seared, nicely salted, and perhaps the star of the evening. The pea puree was good as well, though it didn't add anything to the scallops.

We shared a pistachio almond cake for dessert. It wasn't bad. Surprisingly, we discovered that lemon was the strongest flavor in the cake, not any of the nuts.

For drinks, we started with a floral, slightly sweet white wine recommended by our waitress (from a region of Italy that brought memories to one attendee). With this wine, we toasted our restaurant outings. The wine lasted the meal. With dessert, we ordered a coffee and a dessert wine.

The total was $36/person including tax and tip but not including drinks.

Original Announcement

We're going to go to Da Flora, an Italian (Venetian) restaurant in North Beach.

Comments from Other Attendees

Although there are dishes recommended by multiple reviewers, I'm reticent to make a list of suggestions because the menu changes so often that likely few of these would apply (as was the case during our visit). -mark