Lunya Manchester Review

I don’t know what has happened in Manchester recently but there has been a huge increase in the number of Spanish restaurants and Tapas bars, not that I am complaining, I love tapas. Lunya is one of five Spanish restaurants on Deansgate alone and one of the best.

Situated right opposite what was my first introduction to tapas, La Tasca, Lunya is a hit with both English and Spanish diners, testament to the quality and authenticity of the food. Lunya, is situated on two floors in the Barton Arcade, with a delicatessen and bar on the ground floor and the restaurant on the first floor. There is plenty of seating upstairs with a nice outside terrace area, when I say outside, it is actually outside of the restaurant but still inside the arcade.

Lunya Manchester Interior

We had lunch at Lunya and wanted to keep it light,  so we only sampled a few dishes. Chorizo pan fried with wine and fennel seeds, Gambas píl píl (king prawns in chilli, garlic, olive oil and vanilla), Patatas bravas (potatoes with spicy tomato sauce and allioli), Deep fried Monte Enebro (Goats Cheese) and a house salad.

I like chorizo a great deal but it can often be a bit fatty or too hard to chew, also the sauce it is cooked in can make or break it for me. Lunya’s chorizo was nice and tender and not too fatty but there was slightly too much fennel in the sauce for my liking. The king prawns were nice and tasty and the dressing was just the right level of spicy. The patatas bravas were delicious, again the sauce can make or break patatas bravas if its either too spicy or not spicy enough, Lunya has it just right and the alioli complimented the spice perfectly.

I am not a big fan of goats cheese, it reminds me of putting money in my mouth as kid (we all did that right?) but I am always happy to try things so I gave it a go, as expected, it tasted like sucking on a two pence piece but that’s just my dislike of goats cheese and not a criticism of Lunya; my girlfriend, who is a big fan of goats cheese didn’t enjoy it as much as she would a French goats cheese.

café bombón

For dessert we had a biscuit platter from the deli. A very nice selection of biscuits, truffles and bon bon type sweets and we also had a coffee. If you have never tried it, you should give the café bombón a try. Made popular in Valencia, a café bombón, mixes espresso with sweetened condensed milk in a 1:1 ratio. The picture above shows how it is served and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it when it. The waitress explained I needed to give it a good stir to mix the milk and the coffee, sounds obvious I know but I didn’t want to look like a heathen by destroying such a great looking drink. A café bombón is very sweet indeed but it made for a perfect accompanying drink to the biscuits. I enjoyed it so much that now whenever I am passing Lunya, I will  try to call in for a café bombón.

Prices were quite reasonable at Lunya with the bill coming in at around £35 for all of the above plus two large bottles of sparkling water.