Lunya

18–20 College Lane,
Liverpool One,
Liverpool,
L1 3DS
website

Never one to turn down the opportunity for a free or reduced meal, I was more than happy to assist Catherine in utilising the Lunya vouchers she’d received for her birthday to road test their new Spring/Summer menu. Arriving for the early evening sitting, the restaurant was nicely busy, with a couple of the parties clearly having enjoyed Ladies Day at Aintree. After the obligatory pint of Estrella to accompany a brief perusal of the menu, I decided to deviate from my normal selection of three or four different tapas dishes in order to try a larger dish that I had recommended on Facebook and Twitter when an appeal was made for ideas for dishes for the new season.

To start with though, I went for the one stone cold certainty on the menu: Monte Enebro goat’s cheese deep-fried and ordered with a side of sourdough bread. The soft bread was an ideal accompaniment to the stunning cheese, apparently a multi award winner over the years.



Catherine opted to have one tapa followed by two more when I got my ‘main’. She began with Mediterranean vegetable tempura, which, as with the Monte Enebro, benefited from a light, unobtrusive batter and which worked well its dipping sauce.




For main I went for an option from the list of paella dishes. Arroz negro is a dish I have loved when I’ve tried it in Valencia and more recently in Seville and which I’d not seen on a menu in Liverpool, hence my one-man electronic campaign to get Lunya to serve it. It was a mixture of joy and relief then that the end result was the brilliant equal of the versions I’d had before, the whole generously-portioned dish receiving, as it has always done, a mysterious lift from a generous allocation of a lovely garlicky aioli.



Catherine's first selection were the salt cod buñuelos; round, deep fried balls of salt cod, mashed potato and garlic, which were soft and moreish. Her second choice turned out ironically to be the only minor disappointment, the Catalan scouse. Having loved the dish at last year’s food festival and then at the restaurant's gourmet evening, I was pleased to see it on the menu but for whatever reason - there was a slight difference in look and possibly a slight change in recipe - while perfectly tasty, for both Catherine and I it failed to hit those same heights and left us underwhelmed.



Whilst approaching full, both of us felt there was sufficient room in the separate stomach compartment reserved for pudding to share the chocolate fondant. I was particularly interested in the specified use of paprika, as having had, and enjoyed to varying levels, chilli chocolate, it seems to be a difficult balance to stop the heat overpowering the chocolate. Any fear was unfounded though as, without wishing to sound like Gregg Wallace, it proved a gooey delight with a barely detectable understated warmth running through it.



Topped off by an excellent Navajas Tinto rioja, I would say without hyperbole that it was as good a three-course meal as I personally have had in the city in my years living here. And I can assure you that is a lot of food….