Happy in the kitchen, tasty on the plate – Forest’s reopening on Dominion Road heralds a new era for Plabita Florence

restaurant

12 Aug

Written By Antony

DOMINION ROAD DIARIES - FOREST

Plabita Florence’s Forest began as a pop-up, progressed into a petite restaurant on Symonds St, and then after a hiatus, reopened last month in a new, significantly larger site in the Valley Rd shops on Dominion Rd. Over a late-morning coffee, I sat down for a korero with Plabita at one of the restaurant’s handsome and practical cork-topped tables. The matte cork panels, offering a surface that’s warm and soft to the touch and will wear well over time, are one of the design touches from Plabita’s friends and design helpers Hannah Broatch and Mason Rattray from Hatch. Plabita’s own crayon illustration sprawls across one wall, complemented by dreamy little watercolour paintings by her grandmother. I remarked that the colour scheme appears to echo the colours of fresh produce, and Plabita told me that, unintentionally, the names of the Resene colours she opted for are indeed food-adjacent: blackcurrant; cabernet sauvignon; cumin, and popcorn.

Plabita feels excited, primarily about the fact she has shifted from a 3-course set menu that changed weekly, to an a la carte menu which she plans on simply tweaking seasonally, letting popular dishes stay on. Diners from the Symonds St site will recognise elements on the new menu, which Plabita has built around customer favourites from Forest’s back catalogue – she has rather a lot to pick from, having turned out a couple of hundred menus over several years.

There’s clearly immense satisfaction and happiness in moving on to a format that still allows creativity, yet doesn’t tie the kitchen in to coming up with a completely new lineup each and every week. The fact she has more help here too no doubt adds to her relaxed outlook – Ashleigh Payne works the kitchen during the day shift (Forest opens from 7am until 2pm for coffee and counter food), and barista Aoi Sato makes the excellent Kokako coffee we sipped on. Overall Forest manages a relaxed, home-away-from-home atmosphere that’s very rare to find these days.

Customers, I suspect, will be able to taste the happiness of Forest’s people on the plate. They’ll taste it in dishes that take the best of the season and present it in ways that surprise. “I love that you can have an impact on diners”, said Plabita, “by challenging perceptions – using ‘uncool’ things like turnip and radish and seeing people leave inspired to try new things at home with them, too”. The menu balances Plabita’s desire for diners to feel satiated without feeling “Gross after eating things that are too salty or fatty, which can taint the whole experience”. It doesn’t mean there is no richness and depth, but her way of achieving that often comes from slowing things down – fermenting, pickling, infusing things into vinegars for example – rather than by whacking a bunch of salt, butter, or sugar into a dish. The shelves behind the back counter are laden with jars full of things brewing away, including salted yuzu which is currently going into a salted yuzu vodka martini – yes, please.

Plabita describes herself as “completely untrained” as a chef. Although her mother worked in cafés when Plabita was young, her family were all artists and she felt a pull to go in that direction. However, she felt uninspired working as a graphic designer, and a stint as a kitchen hand triggered the realisation that cooking could offer a creative outlet and prompted her to change direction. Her unpretentious nature is evident in the wording on the menu, where descriptions like ‘gooey’, ‘goop’, ‘nugget’, ‘dregs’ and ‘upside-down’ elicit smiles and whet the appetite. And while ethics and sustainability are hugely important to the sourcing of and making-the-most-of produce at this vegetarian and vegan restaurant, Plabita says that ultimately, her goal is to serve food that’s delicious. “I don’t want to be thinking, ‘Oh this is really good for something I foraged, or rescued, or painstakingly made or whatever … I want to grab someone’s taste buds first with something that tastes great, and then maybe get them thinking about the backstory later on’.