One of our favorite fine dining spots in London continues to impress with its seasonally-changing menus. Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London at The OWO is renowned for its thoughtful and innovative dishes, but the new Flower Menu — which coincided with the Chelsea Flower Show — is a creative and technical level-up. It’s not just about edible petals sprinkled across plates. Flowers infuse everything—from the olive oil to the dessert — and the results are sensational.
We were invited back to experience the new menu created by Chef Mauro Colagreco, Chef Leonel Aguirre, and their talented team. Each course revolves around a different flower, used both as flavor and design inspiration. You can learn about the flowers from the beautifully illustrated and informative postcards that accompany each course. The flavors are precise, the execution flawless, and the plating simply stunning yet without feeling overworked.
The seven-course Flower menu starts strong with a series of gorgeous amuses-bouches: scallop tartare with blue cornflowers, mini tacos filled with dairy cow tartare, and crispy chicken skin crackers encasing a rich chicken liver pate. Delicious olive oil from Menton is a staple on the menu (accompanying the chef’s traditional bread course) but this time its infused with the heady scent and flavor of geranium.
For us, the Cosmos dish was a standout, comprised of a base of line-caught sea bass tartare topped with meticulously arranged cosmos petals and finished with an Isle of Man honey vinaigrette. It’s fresh, floral, and just sweet enough without the honey being overpowering. The Scottish langoustine tart that came next was rich and satisfying — filled with raw langoustine and caviar and paired with an elderflower tempura that adds a light, crisp texture. It’s served with a deep, rich langoustine broth you’ll want to finish every last drop of.
Another favorite of ours: the grilled Scottish lobster with courgette flower, potato foam, and a coconut and garam masala bisque. Instead of a wine pairing, the sommelier made a bold move pairing this dish with a rare sake aged in red maple barrels.
The wine pairings throughout the meal are clever and unexpected. Don’t expect the ubiquitous big French or Italian producers. Instead, the sommelier highlights small growers, lesser-known regions, and unique bottles that tie into the floral concept. It’s a refreshing change, and it shows they’re thinking beyond the obvious.
A compressed cucumber dish paired with jasmine sorbet and a floral spritz wrapped up the menu, which was a light and refreshing finish to a remarkable experience.
It’s the small touches that really illustrate how much thought has been given to the experience. For example, the second bread course — critical for soaking up the delicious sauces on the John Dory and duck courses — featured sourdough loaves sourced from a bakery in North London and came with two types of meticulously piped cylinders of butter. One was subtly floral, playing into the menu’s theme without distracting from the main courses.
The Flower Menu is available through June 28, and if you’re in London, book it now. The service remains some of the best we’ve had in the city, and the food continues to evolve while staying deeply rooted in Mauro Colagreco’s philosophy of focusing on seasonal ingredients and hyper-local products, including the flowers themselves.
Note: Mauro Colagreco provided support for the reporting of this story.