November 14, 2025 |
This job has many perks. However, getting to eat at restaurants like Luso is up there with the best. A restaurant that centres high-quality ingredients, prepared in an unfussy manner, the Charlotte Street eatery serves up understated dishes that still manage to peacock the calibre of cooking London has for the chomping. Luso’s charm is evident from the off. It’s no doubt a luxe restaurant (there are items on the menu priced by gram, rather than plate), but it’s not full of itself because of this.
The restaurant, spread across two wooden-floored storeys, features minimalist decor with details that shout style. Muted sage and deep, dusty blues coat the walls, whilst a sunny, butter yellow is the hue of choice for the shopfront – a warm welcome before you step through the threshold.
Once inside, fresh off a greeting from the smiling staff, you’ll find touches of refined design everywhere you look. Turn your gaze upward and you’re greeted by trailing leafy stems that gently fall past the wooden planks installed to support their wide wicker baskets, each brushed by a wide-bellied wine bottle of an antique-y ilk. Miniature lamps with textured shades curve out of the walls, aiding the ambient lighting that is dialled down to a wattage that makes the place feel warm and sexy without entering too-dark territory. The taste on show is assured. This, however, shouldn’t be too surprising, as Luso is a second iteration of Lisboeta, a restaurant at the same address and under the same ownership with a similar focus that shuttered this August to morph into its successor.
Lisboeta, headed up by former exec-chef at Chiltern Firehouse, Nuno Mendes, was an experimental take on Portuguese dining, whilst Luso, has meant a passing of the baton to Mendes’ protegé Leandro (Leo) Carreira, who holds the position of consultant executive chef. On the receiving end of Carreira’s consultation is Kimberley Hernandez, Luso’s head chef on the ground. Despite not having Portuguese heritage (Hernandez is American), she’s been quietly learning the art of Portuguese cuisine following tenures at Chiswick’s The Silver Birch and Bank’s Kym’s. Positing “a new chapter in contemporary Portuguese dining,” Luso, which takes its name from what the Ancient Romans termed modern-day Portugal (Lusitania), is a masterclass in plating up simple brilliance.
Head Chef, Kimberley Hernandez at Luso
We wet the whistle with a classic sourdough. Ordering the Requeijão cream cheese alongside, a creamy, light dip native to Brazil and Portugal, the bowl was licked clean, the smoky, fluffy sourdough moonlighting as a delightfully porous mop. To follow, we sampled the British Wagyu croquettes, one of the dishes that fuses the restaurant’s Portuguese roots with its UK postcode, and the Hokkaido squash, topped with garlic and a small dollop of coriander piso (a condiment similar to salsa verde). Sipping on a juicy red from the Setúbal region of Portugal (proper name Vinha dos Pardais), my guest and I really decided to give in to all our indulgent desires and order the 50-day-aged Ribeye on the bone, cut thick in the traditional Posta Mirendesa style derived from northern Portugal. The lesson learnt – indulge whilst you still can. Life is short, so why not?
The cuts were juicy, lightly charred and possessed a moreish saltiness that meant we scarfed down most of it in under 10 minutes and got the rest packed away to take home. The list of sides numbered five dishes, so naturally, we got four of them. A tomato salad whereby beefy tomatoes were left almost untouched aside from a few lashings of olive oil and whisps of red onion, a baked butter rice that melted in the mouth, crispy potatoes with a thin, crunchy skin and a fresh, green leaf salad. Each was simple in its own right but rather outstanding, driving home the restaurant’s motto of being an “ingredient-led restaurant.” To finish, we cut our sweet tooth with the chocolate mouse, splashed with olive oil and salt – a technique that prompted us to ponder why we had ever eaten chocolate mousse any other way before.
This last dish encapsulated the joy of Luso. Simplicity done right, crafted by hands versed in technical brilliance, makes the cuisine feel much more accessible than dishes where it’s hard to make out the wood from the trees. Cultivating this environment means Luso is one of those spots that feels revisitable, creating new memories each time, over some proper good food. Book a table here.
Photography courtesy of Luso.
