At The Table With: Nat Stratton-Clarke, Owner of the Flora Restaurant Group

Instagram: @cafefloraveg 

Nat Stratton-Clarke (He/Him) 

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Inside Cafe Flora, Nat Stratton-Clarke’s beloved Madison Valley restaurant, a slow-cooked risotto with foraged mushrooms and earthy nettle pesto is on the menu. It’s exactly the kind of dish that belongs at Cafe Flora.

“It’s the kind of dish that could only exist right now, in this place, and with these ingredients,” he says. “That epitomizes Cafe Flora to me.” 

Nat grew up in the Bay Area and has called Seattle home for over twenty years. He lives in Madison Valley with his wife and eight-year-old twins, and when he’s not at one of his three restaurants, you’ll find him at one of the city’s farmers markets or exploring nature with his family.  

He bought Cafe Flora in 2008, when it was already a cherished institution, and has since grown it into the Flora Restaurant Group, a collection of three concepts: Cafe Flora, Floret, and The Flora Bakehouse. The throughline connecting all of them is a devotion to plant-based cooking, locally sourced ingredients, and the farmers who grow them. 

That devotion has deep roots. Every summer of his childhood, Nat and his brother would forage blackberries growing along the creek bed near their Bay Area home. His mother would get out the mixing bowl, and they’d make blackberry crumble together. It was the first recipe he ever learned by heart. 

It’s a simple recipe — and that was the whole point,” he says. “The best blackberries at the peak of summer don’t need much. That idea of letting exceptional produce speak for itself is something I still hold onto dearly at Cafe Flora.” 

 For Nat, plant-based cooking is not restriction. It’s about abundance — knowing your farmers, following the seasonal shifts, and letting truly exceptional ingredients do the heavy lifting. It’s also about something larger as the effects of climate change become more visible. For Nat, cooking this way feels more meaningful than ever. 

“It’s not just about what’s on the plate,” he says. “It’s about how we feed people and take care of the planet at the same time.” 

June is Pride Month, and for Nat it’s a time of both celebration and urgency. Nat came out as trans more than twenty years ago. He is publicly, visibly out as a trans business owner, and he understands the weight of that visibility. 

“Pride reminds me why visibility matters, why showing up matters, and why the spaces we create matter.” 

For the month of June, Nat runs what he calls the Cinnamon Rolls not Gender Rolls fundraiser, donating a dollar from every cinnamon roll sold across all three locations to the Trans Justice Funding Project, Camp Ten Trees, and the GSBA Scholarship Fund.

The commitment to inclusion at Cafe Flora extends far beyond a single month. When Nat bought the restaurant, he made a deliberate choice to build a space where everyone could bring their whole selves, whether you’re an employee and or a guest. 

Running a restaurant group — three concepts, a large team, an ever-shifting relationship with what’s in season — has taught Nat that leadership is fundamentally about people. Not about systems, not about menus, but about creating environments where people can thrive and trusting them to do so. 

“The values have to live in the culture, not just in the owner’s head,” he says.

To LGBTQ+ culinary creators building their own vision, his advice is direct. 

“Your identity is not a liability — it’s a lens,” says Nat. “The restaurants and businesses and products that will define the next generation of food culture are going to be built by people like you, who see the world differently and aren’t afraid to show it. Build the thing you wish existed. There are people out there who are waiting for exactly what you have to offer — they just don’t know it yet.”