The Flourist – Canada

Canadian design studio Ste Marie has recently designed Flourist. Yes, I said Flourist, who new that was a thing? Essentially a bakery and cafe with a cool twist in East Vancouver that showcases Vancouver’s only community-based flour mill. The first fully traceable grain, beans, and flour company, Flourist provides premium dry goods and fresh, stone-milled flours and offers an alternative to the highly processed and rancid flours commonly found on grocery store shelves and in the bulk bins of mystery beans and grains of unknown origins.
At its core, Flourist connects people with the sources of their food and every product to the farmers who grow them.
Building off the Shaker principles and pastiche, the interior of the Mill + Bakery highlights abundance and warmth with a straightforward approach. A palette of malty tones taken from Flourist’s grains and pulses, enveloping the space like a field of wheat. In front, there is large community table with a small sink that is intended to allow for bread-making workshops. The dowelled shelves at the retail space extend in front of the window, allowing the bounty to creep into the public realm, to invite curious onlookers to come inside. Backing the space is the functional flour mill–a clear articulation of the transparency that informs Flourist–uninterested in the delineations between design and function. “Our design for the Flourist Mill + Bakery adduces the nourishment of art, presented as a loaf of bread,” says the studio.
The new bakery and cafeteria, features a menu of hearty vegetarian meal options, creative sourdough toasts, and other baked goods, all made with flour milled on-site, as well as an assortment of their popular sourdough loaves to take home.