Takeaway Q&A: Food Chats with Nat Stratton-Clarke
All hail the snackle box!
Nat Stratton-Clarke is the owner of the Flora Restaurant Group: Cafe Flora, The Flora Bakehouse, and Floret. He has fostered a haven for vegetarians and vegans alike with local, organic, and sustainable goods with an eye on being eco-conscious and producing food that is simply delicious. As a transgender business owner, he strives to cultivate a safe, respectful, and diverse environment for guests and his 100+ employees as well as contributing to organizations such as The Trans Justice Funding Project and GSBA to help support their ongoing missions. He and his wife, Erin, reside in Madison Valley with their 6-year old twin daughters.
I have an important thing to discuss first. Airport food. One of your restaurants, Floret, which is in the Seattle airport, is a godsend. Was the lack of decent airport food an inspiration for Floret?
Floret definitely came out of the experience of being in an airport and trying to find something good to eat, especially when you know you have to eat immediately. I grew up vegetarian, and for a long time all you could get at the airport was maybe a slice of cheese pizza, french fries, or a Starbucks oatmeal. That was it. Those were your three choices. The lack of options was depressing and I knew it didn’t have to be that way.
Also, the airport is the first place people see when they get to Seattle. And It's the last morsel we leave them with. It should be delicious and memorable. We were also the very first vegetarian restaurant in an airport in the US!
I didn’t realize that!
I have twin six year olds and airport food took on a whole new meeting with kids. Even If I'm trying to sprint through, there's no way it can be a quick thing. Everything takes a million years. I need to be able to get something to eat as relatively easily as possible.
I remember awhile back when I was running late at the airport, I picked up the overnight mango oats at Floret. They practically saved my life. I remember everything about the moment I ate them - which gate it was and the angle I was sitting in the chair. Time slowed down. I ate them right before I boarded that plane, and it was the moment I realized everything was going to be ok and my trip was going to be great.
I love that.
Is there anything that you eat at the airport that you normally don't eat in your day? I’m really into liminal spaces and I’m kind of obsessed about the things people do and eat in those spaces.
I mean Peanut Butter M&Ms for sure. It's like one of those things I would never buy streetside, right? But at the airport I'm like where are my M&Ms?
Exactly.
For some reason they only sell them in the giant bag too! It's almost a survival strategy, to carry some calories with you as you go. And I am definitely that person who has as many snacks with them as possible when they travel. I have to have two waters at LEAST, at all times. When I pack, Erin, my amazing partner, makes fun of me because of how over the top it is. I will get on the flight with every snack you could possibly think of. But we could be stuck on this plane for hours. And with the kids!
This is a really nerdy thing to admit, but as a parent this last summer, I got really deep into the snackle box. It’s a tackle box that you make into a snack box. We were going on this big road trip and I was so sick of going through the backpack, and being like what about this? How about this one? Forever and ever. So I got the little tackle box and then filled it with all different kinds of snacks.
It’s a real tackle box?!
It’s a legit tackle box. We got one for each of the kids and it is the most satisfying thing. To hand it back to them. And then. Silence.
We were recently on a trip to Japan and when we were on the plane, I was like here's your snackle box, have at it.
I would have died for this as a kid. My number one lunch wish was for my parents to get me Lunchables. They would maybe buy me and my sisters one a year. Those things aren’t cheap. The kids at school that had Lunchables on the regular - it was clear to me they were multi-millionaires.
My thing was those pink circus cookies. My parents were hippies so we only had wax paper bags and I was so jealous of the kids when they had a ziplock full of circus animal cookies. They were the fanciest pink and white sprinkle cookie I had ever seen, and I was like, I must have it. And then as an adult, you eat it, and you’re like wow this is actually not good. But as a kid it doesn't matter!
We are pretty much the same age. I think we're the last generation where you could still buy soda in school along with as many cookies as you wanted.
I think you’re right!
At my high school there was also a Chinese restaurant down the street. For a dollar they would sell us a container of white rice and peanut sauce. And that was lunch for many days.
That’s impressive! Just the caloric density and what you could get for a dollar. That will get you through the day.
A hundred percent. And kudos to the restaurant for figuring out what teenagers could afford.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the Bay Area.
Is there one thing you specifically miss that you grew up eating?
Yeah. I love bread. Especially sourdough bread. I really took that for granted growing up. There was good bread everywhere. When I was really little we lived in Berkeley near a place called the Cheese Board. It’s one of the oldest retail collectives still going in the country. It’s a cheese store and my parents love to tell the story of how every time we went there, when I was super young, they would just try to feed me stronger and stronger cheeses to see if I would eat them. As a toddler I was like bring it on! Gorgonzola, yes! Give me the blue cheese!
I’m so impressed with baby Nat!
Super Stinky. It didn't matter. I was there.
They also make a baguette that is almost all crust. It's thin and warm. It’s just incredible. There's something about it that I've never had anywhere else. But of course, there is something about San Francisco sourdough. I mean, it's a cliché for a reason.
I’ve only been to San Francisco a few times, and I have always gone out of my way to visit Tartine Bakery. Even if I only had one extra hour while I was in town.
Yes. The lemon tartlet. I don't understand how it's as good as it is, but it is!
I normally wouldn’t wait in a line for a croissant as big as my head. But at Tartine I definitely did. And normally I would be suspicious of a croissant that size and not buy it.
You're like, is it from Costco? Is it injected with air?
Totally. But of course it was phenomenally delicious.
MUG BREAK 🍵
Do you have a favorite mug and why?
I have a lot of opinions about mugs because I don't drink coffee in the morning. I drink tea. My parents are British, so we grew up drinking tea. We have two drawers in our house dedicated to just tea, one is black tea and one is herbal tea. I like a very thin lipped mug, just because that’s what I grew up with. I really believe that it makes a difference to the drinker and the enjoyment of the drink itself. Erin likes an American diner-style mug. She likes a giant one. I want my dainty one.
We just went to Tokyo Disney and the kids had the best time. It was adorable. There’s a restaurant there called The Snuggly Duckling, based off of the Disney movie Tangled. I just wanted to live at The Snuggly Duckling. It was my happy place.
I kept getting the veggie burger, which was an anomaly to find at Disney. They had some wild drink with cold foam, and I don't know what the hell was in there, but I think I had three of them one day. And if I was feeling overwhelmed, Erin was like why don't you go back to The Snuggly Duckling and get a beverage? And I was just like, yeah, I'd like to go back to Snuggly. Just tuck me in.
So yes this mug was my Tokyo Disney souvenir and I love it!
When you became the owner of Cafe Flora, was there a specific dish that you knew had to stay on the menu no matter what?
It’s funny, because I tried taking something off the menu and that really blew up in my face. Flora opened in ‘91 and it was one of the first of its kind. I started working at Cafe Flora in ‘05. I bought it 16 years ago, which is kind of wild, that it has been that long.
There were a couple of dishes that had been on the menu since we opened, and one of them was the Oaxaca tacos. Delicious potato tacos. So I was like ok, let's do a rotation of amazing seasonal tacos. I took the original tacos off the menu and guests went around with a paper petition. I'm not even kidding. They got 300 signatures and were like, you have to put this back on the menu! And I was like, okay.
Community in action right there!
We just took it off the menu this last year, finally.
How'd it go?
It went fine! I mean the food world in Seattle is so different than it was 20 years ago. There have been so many things that have evolved. And I feel lucky for that. But we still have cheesy grits on the menu. Those have always been there.
I was gonna say I would lose my mind if you removed those cheesy grits. I would throw my plate across the room. I would leave.
It's the same recipe too. It’s one of the very few things that we have not touched because they are fantastic. They are so good. They're a classic for a reason.
Also grits are not really a breakfast or brunch staple in the Pacific Northwest I feel. The grits are needed!
It's true. Some people will still ask, what are grits?
What's the most memorable meal you’ve had recently?
Maybe it’s a cheat, but I don't think I'll ever forget it. We just went to Japan and we were on Naoshima Island, which is called the Art Island. It’s an old traditional fishing island, which eventually transformed into an island with a ton of art and artists. It’s amazing. At the top of the island, there's all these amazing museums full of stunning art and Yayoi Kusama's got two of her beautiful pumpkins that are just sitting on a pier. So we went with the kids and we stayed on this campsite in these amazing yurts on the beach.
Erin booked a meal and made sure to tell them I’m vegetarian. Sometimes that translates, and sometimes it doesn't, and the kids and I roll with it pretty well. So the food comes out and it is amazing. There’s a barbecue in each of the tables on the beach and there is this giant round platter of gorgeous kabocha squash, vegetables, rolls, and tofu marinated in a cast iron skillet. It was some of the best barbecue ever, with all these different barbecue sauces and dipping sauces.
So just barbecuing on the beach with the kids. It doesn't really get much better than that in my mind.
I can’t imagine much better!
And we were just watching all the boats going by. I don't think I'll ever forget it.
That gave me a body chill.
It was so simple, And I think that's the thing. Some of my favorite meals, the ones that I remember best, are not always the fanciest meals.
For sure. I have one more question. Is there anything you have recently been so excited to eat, that you are already counting down the hours as you are falling asleep? For me it’s coffee. I love coffee so much I will be lying in bed really looking forward to it.
Let's see. We usually try to eat a hot breakfast. I think especially from working in restaurants, I usually don’t have time every night, so our family meal together is in the morning. And I love that time of day. We're all fresh and talking about what we are excited about that day.
This morning the kids and I made pancakes together, which is so fun. Just making them together and cracking eggs, seeing how fast we can mix the batter in the bowl. They really like sprinkle pancakes. So the last couple of pancakes I make, we cover them in sprinkles because why not? It's just little things like that that I look forward to.
I mean I love my job, but every day is different. I love that moment in the morning, when it is calm and we start our day off in a fun way. It really is so special. So I look forward to that!
That's awesome! Thanks so much for chatting Nat. And please everyone, go eat the cheesy grits at Cafe Flora!
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