Now Open: Flùr is Wellington’s New Boutique Pastry and Coffee Shop

Sarah Mackenzie left her legal career over a decade ago because she loved baking more than she loved sitting in an office. Following extensive stints at some of Wellington’s most well-known cafes and restaurants, she’s opened Flùr – a wee boutique pastry shop at the top end of Wellington’s famous Cuba Street.

With its light green counter and limited seating, it’s the type of place you’d swing by for a takeaway treat or perch on one of the stools for a short while. Mackenzie says she had often looked at the spot (formerly a coffee shop called Retrogrove) and thought it would be perfect for a petit neighbourhood venture. “I wanted to keep it small because I wanted to make all the pastries myself – because that’s what I love,” she tells Broadsheet. “I don’t necessarily love running a business and employing staff.”

Back when she made her career switch, she had convinced Kelda Hains (a well-known Wellington chef and now co-owner of the restaurant Rita), to train her in pastry making at Hains’ former cafe, Wellington institution Nikau. Mackenzie had been introduced to Hains through a mutual friend. “Kelda is very good at giving people who are passionate an opportunity,” she says.

Mackenzie stayed at Nikau for about six years before training in patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. She’s worked at the renowned Baker Gramercy , started her own business selling pastries at the Thorndon markets, joined Hains again to help develop Rita’s desserts, and most recently worked at another local institution – Floriditas.

Every morning from Wednesday to Saturday, Flùr opens with smells of warm, steaming pastries that waft down Cuba Street. Mackenzie will have been up since 3.30am baking the day’s pastries in her home kitchen a kilometre away. On the counter when Broadsheet visits are danishes filled with her homemade preserved apricots, and morning pastries (melt-in-the-mouth buttery pastries coated with icing). There’s also coffee from Coffee Supreme.

Mackenzie uses French patisserie techniques, crafting pastry and brioche into delicious sweet and savoury morsels, such as olive and feta tarts, raspberry doughnuts and rhubarb danishes. You won’t find a single plain croissant at Flùr – instead, her pastries and baked goods are bursting with seasonal ingredients and flavours. “I make the pastries I enjoy rather than what someone else thinks will sell,’’ she says.

Mackenzie sources her ingredients both locally and from around the country. She preserves a lot, such as the juicy apricots and plums from Central Otago that she procured over the summer.

Flùr is the Scottish Gaelic word for “flour” and “flower”. Mackenzie’s late father, Donald, was from Scotland and spoke Gaelic as his first language. He was passionate about food and wine and even had a wine bar in Auckland in the ‘80s – Don’s Wine Bar, on Karangahape Road.

When she was planning Wellington’s new morning destination, Mackenzie was inspired by the boutique coffee and pastry shops she visited in Sydney, Melbourne and Paris. “I really love that feeling of getting up early as the light is starting and watching a city waking up, people getting their pastries and coffee before heading off on their day.’’

Flùr
275 Cuba Street, Wellington

Hours:
Wed to Fri 7:30am–1pm
Sat 8:00am–1:30pm
Sun to Tues Closed

@flurpastry

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