Lana Lusa is the second restaurant to be found in Wasl 51 that we’ve come to love. This warm little Mediterranean gem of mustard yellows and burgundy is all about the seafood – which Portugal does so well!
From the cold starters, we cannot recommend enough the Marinated Sardines and Marinated Octopus with tomato dressing and coriander, both of which are superb. Served with slices of crunchy toast to spoon them onto, these were my absolute favourites, and we will be looking forward to eating these all over again on our inevitable next visit.
From the hot starters we chose the Sauteed Mussels in olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and coriander, and the Pan Seared Prawns with Garlic, both of which were also fabulous. The lovely homemade crusty Portuguese bread rolls provided are perfect for mopping up those incredibly tasty sauces left at the bottom of the dishes, and ours were bone dry when we sent them back!
We also tried the Veal and Beef Croquettes with peri peri mayo and lemon, which were very nice, but once you’ve had a taste of the seafood, it’s a clear decision on how to go about the menu the next time round. It’s seafood all the way and we still have plenty to try.
We never feel we’ve ordered a big enough selection to get the full experience, so we were foolish enough to order 2 mains. What we should have done was order 2 more starters, as that would’ve been more than enough! The Braised Monkfish with rice, peppers, onion and tomatoes is a delicious rice stew, but with only 3 chunks of fish it didn’t seem enough to go with all the rice, which we were unable to finish at this point in any case. The Gratinated Codfish with potatoes and parsley was another very tasty and very classic Portuguese cod dish, but it was our mistake to order two starches and we ended up bursting at the seams. So much so, that we didn’t have space to eat a Pasteis de Nata that I had been especially looking forward to.
So we ordered two to go to have with an afternoon coffee, and added a Rice Cake which was far too dry to enjoy and 2 different almond cakes – the moist Toucinho do Ceu which outdid the Bacalhau com Natas, which was also on this occasion dry. Guaranteed you cannot go wrong with their Pasteis de Nata, they are absolute perfection!
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