The Observer
Taking her turn as guest critic, long-time Observer food writer and editor Mina Holland visited the new incarnation of what was previously the experimental Portuguese restaurant Lisboeta, from high-profile chef Nuno Mendes. With Mendes gone, it has been subtly reworked by his former staff (with input from Leandro Carreira, the fishmonger/chef behind The Sea, the Sea) along more familiar lines: as Mina put it, “less pork-fat custard, more piri piri chicken”.
The new version passed the acid test of whether she would like to return. Mina had enjoyed Lisboeta three years ago for “a novel meal without the need for a sequel”. By contrast, Luso was like the Pixar classic film that her children enjoy again and again: “It’s the holy grail for any restaurant – to be the Toy Story of eateries: to do something so well that people go back for more, many times, and find something new to love on each visit.”
Not every dish was perfect – a plate of brill crudo with apple and red pepper vinaigrette “lacks chemistry” – but amêijoas à bulhão pato, clams cooked in the southern Portuguese style with coriander, garlic and white wine, “really deliver”, their “deeply comforting liquor, shellfish’s answer to Jewish penicillin”, while seabass baked in salt may well be the best seabass she will ever eat in London.
One tip: sit in the “serene” upstairs dining room, not the narrow corridor-like room downstairs, where the flashing light of the dishwasher was directly in Mina’s line of vision.
Mina Holland - 2025-10-26
