Flour

A bakery blooms on Washington Street

by Rob McKeown

on the cheap

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There’s a homey vibe at Flour, the new home of former Mistral pastry chef Joanne Chang: the walls are blue, the newspapers are neatly folded, and the day’s weather forecast is written on a chalkboard. A cross section of the South End neighborhood — gay and straight, artsy and not — has already started rolling in for lunch, snacks, and desserts.

It’s a sweet deal, as it were. Bakery sandwiches usually suffer from heavy-handedness, but here a roast chicken breast is moist and downright sprightly when smeared with chipotle-avocado mayo ($6.50). Sopressata ($6.50), a garlicky Tuscan salami, is paired sweetly with prosciutto and provolone. You can eat light — say, with a toasty corn-and-tortilla soup ($2.95) — but it’s hard to resist a quiche with ham, gruyère cheese, and a crust that doesn’t fight back.

The sweets aren’t easy to stay away from either. Meringue clouds ($1.50) are wondrously light and sugary; double-chocolate cookies ($1.50) and brownies ($1.50) are downright sexy. If Flour has any failing, it’s that the sweets, muffins, and pastries are too small. But that’s just an excuse to have another, right?

Flour Bakery, located at 1595 Washington Street, in Boston, is open Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Call (617) 267-4300.

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