Slice of New York comes to Edinburgh as new pizza and pasta bar Flùr opens at Bonnie & Wild
Slice of New York comes to Edinburgh as new pizza and pasta bar Flùr opens at Bonnie & Wild
A slice of New York has touched down in Edinburgh as the latest kitchen at Bonnie & Wild opened to the sound of sizzling toppings and eager pizza lovers … and it might just be the best pizza you ever taste according to a world-renowned pizza expert.
Slinging out iconic 18” pizzas as well as individual slices, the New York-style pizza bar Flùr opened at Bonnie & Wild following weeks of prep and a charity pop-up at the famous Palmerston.
The brainchild of Ivan Stein, co-founder of The Gannet, Flùr takes its inspiration from the thousands of New York pizzerias that dot the city from Queens to Brooklyn, New Jersey to Manhattan. So inspired by New York, Ivan even turned to global pizza consultant Anthony Falco for his support in developing the pizza recipe and flavours.
With Flùr – the Gaelic for flour – the latest kitchen to open at Bonnie & Wild’s Scottish Marketplace, Ivan is clear that the new pizzeria will retain a distinctive Scottish flavour. The award-winning chef said: “Flùr is absolutely inspired by the amazing New York pizzas, but I’ve sourced the ingredients from local suppliers, including Scottish-milled flour, so we can really showcase the best of what our country has to offer, which of course fits perfectly with the wider vision at Bonnie & Wild.”
“After visiting New York and sampling its amazing food scene, among the best in the world, I wanted to bring a flavour of that back to Scotland, and opening Flùr at Bonnie & Wild seemed the perfect way to do it, and it’s been fantastic to have the legendary pizza expert Falco with me on that journey!”
Pizza flavours include classics such as Margherita and Pepperoni as well as a Nduja & Honey pie or home-made Salsiccia sausage. And as well as the range of 18” pizza pies and single slices, Flùr will also be serving a select menu of freshly made pasta dishes, including Bucatini Carbona, Tagliatelle with Spring Vegetables, and Ziti with Ragu Genovese, alongside arancino bites, garlic knots, weekly specials and kids dishes.
Global pizza consultant and author Anthony Falco said the new Flùr pizzas were some of the best pizzas he’d ever tasted: “Unlike most of my clients, Ivan had his own sourdough culture that he’s been feeding with Scottish rye. That, along with our flour blend, a biga, and 48-hour proof, resulted in some of the best pizza I’ve ever made.”
He added: “I hadn’t made any pizza in Scotland before but the first thing I did when I arrived in Edinburgh was test the water. I think Edinburgh’s tap water is probably some of the best on the entire planet. Water won’t automatically make your pizza great but it’s a huge factor.”
On changing pizza trends, Anthony said: “When I started as a pizza consultant 9 years ago, everyone was really into wood-fired, Neapolitan, and Neapolitan-ish pizza. I’ve noticed that now in the UK and many other parts of the world, people are really looking to New York for the larger format crispy pizzas and also looking to the new wave of New York pizzerias that focus on fermentation and high quality ingredients.”
Ryan Barrie, Managing Director at Bonnie & Wild, said: “I’m so excited by Flùr, and I think it’s going to be massive. I love the branding, the vision and most of all the food they’re producing. I think visitors to Bonnie & Wild are going to be blown away by the amazing pizza and pasta from Flùr, and it’s another amazing addition to our Scottish Marketplace from another brilliant chef at the top of their game.”
