It’s hard enough running one restaurant kitchen during the pandemic. Try three. That’s exactly what the staff at Flor Mexicana are doing with three different businesses with three different menus operating out of Lula Lounge at Dundas and Brock. Chef Javier Romero and his team run Pizza Azul, fried chicken sandwich shop Bird Box along with Mexican restaurant Flor Mexicana.
The empire began in London, Ont., where the first Bird Box was opened by the same group behind Lula Lounge. A second location followed, and then a move to Toronto, where the Lula Lounge team had an empty kitchen waiting to be filled, and wanted to expand the Bird Box name.
Enter Romero, the Mexico City transplant with a larger-than-life resume, and an inspiration straight from the heart.
“I worked for the Charlotte Hornets for 17 years,” Romero explains. “I cooked for Michael Jordan, for NASCAR, and for the Carolina Panthers.” Oh, and he cooked for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, where Michelle Obama had a meal request he wasn’t exactly expecting.
“Our menu had top of the line stuff, like filet mignon steaks,” he says. “She asked for a veggie burger.”
When he moved to Toronto, he got a job with Bird Box and began developing new menus, helping to evolve the brand by crafting, for example, pizza with a unique sourdough crust.
“The owner of Lula Lounge had a dream of running a pizza place,” Romero says. “He always wanted to have one.”
And so, Azul Pizza was born, a few months after Bird Box opened its doors in Toronto.
One of the most popular pizzas, Romero says, is Mary’s Pizza, which features bacon and candied jalapenos, among other toppings.
Another day, while playing around in the kitchen, Romero and his team came up with more ideas for what would become Flor Mexicana, inspired by the woman who taught him everything he knows about food: his grandmother.
On the menus, the words “inspired by Leonor” offer a glimpse into the food passed down to Romero from his grandmother.
“I’ve cooked with hundreds of chefs from all over,” Romero says, “but she’s the best cook I know.” And so, he built an authentically Mexican menu at Flor Mexicana complete with tacos, quesadillas and horchata, cooked with ingredients directly from Mexico. But, they made it their own with a pizza al pastor, a creation borne out of kitchen experimentation.
“I wanted to have something on the menu for everyone,” Romero says. The desserts are twists on classics, including a tres leches cake and a cheese flan.
When the pandemic is over, Romero says, they will keep operating Flor Mexicana’s menu out of the Lula Lounge space at 1585 Dundas St. W., because the group feels the tacos and handheld cuisine matches the Latin-inspired vibe of the late-night lounge. But, that doesn’t mean the end of Pizza Azul and Bird Box.
The pandemic, the chef says, was great for a few things: it allowed the team to become more like friends and family than co-workers, allowed them to experiment in the kitchen and craft the menus, and afforded them time to find a space that allows them to run all three menus on a more permanent basis.