Restaurant reviews | Lurra - the latest London restaurant you need to know about

Restaurant reviews

Lurra - the latest London restaurant you need to know about

With so much of what’s going on on the London dining scene happening east of the City it’s good to find a hip new restaurant opening slap in the middle of the West End

Actually Seymour Place (just off Edgware Road) is becoming quite the hotspot. Not only does it have Lurra (which means ‘land’ in Basque) but its elder sibling Donostia, Lockhart and a branch of the excellent wine bar and bottle shop Vinoteca. All within five minutes walk of Marble Arch tube.

Lurra ticks all the boxes for 2015 eating out: wood-fired grill, open plan kitchen, obscure seafood, Galician beef which, it turns out, the owners import and supply to other top restaurants and butchers including Kitty Fisher's and Turner and George. Smart cookies.

Only the bright, naturally lit, almost Scandi decor, a welcome change from the now standardised bare brick and reclaimed tables, is not au courant - maybe even sparking off its own trend.

I can’t claim my meal there was typical as I was invited for a press event which meant I got to eat both the turbot and the 14 (yes FOURTEEN) year old beef, an indulgence I would definitely have baulked at had I been paying the bill. Both are designed for sharing but still ... At £65 a kilo, they’re clearly priced more for the locals from nearby Connaught Village than cash-strapped twenty-somethings from the other side of town.

The turbot doesn’t look much but is delicious with its Txacoli (sharply flavoured Basque white wine) dressing. (Dressing? It used to be called a sauce in my day.)

The beef is great too though I’m not sure its 5000-odd day life makes it that much more flavourful than a well hung animal of a third its age. It certainly adds a lot of fat which the clean eating brigade may not appreciate. The accompanying fries and aioli though are stellar - as are the grilled veg which is probably what the clean eaters will stick to.

Before that we kicked off with some excellent prawn croquetas, ‘blistered Gernika peppers’ and some curiously unseasoned marrowbone (more fat) which could have done with a good sprinkling of salt - maybe it was just omitted on the pass. And I know they’re regarded as a delicacy and someone has to eat them if they’re not to be thrown away but hake kokotxas (aka hake throats) just don't do it for me. The grilled squid stuffed with prawns and chorizo with squid ink sauce is another matter. I could happily repeat that on any future visit as I could the scoop of walnut ice cream - all I could squeeze in after such a blowout.

Other plusses: the mainly Spanish winelist is particularly strong and I loved the theatre of our server pouring the crisp Basque wine Txacoli at table from a considerable height. And there’s a lovely room upstairs that would be great for a celebration dinner party.

So will you like Lurra? Depends. If you’re a fussy eater - or like your food prettified - my guess is not. There’s a challenging element to the food you wouldn’t find at say, Barrafina or José Pizarro, two of London’s other top Spanish restaurants. Basque food is rustic and this is authentic Basque.

But if your habitual haunt is Hackney I reckon you will. You may wince at the prices but you don’t have to go for the big set-piece dishes. In theory. I suspect few of you will be able to resist 'that' steak though for me it's squid'n'chips that'll be the lure. I'll be back.

Lurra is at 9, Seymour Place, London W1H 5BA. Tel: 0207 724 4545.

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