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Thanks to owner Peter Kinsella’s habit of unashamedly combining Spanish cuisine with inspirations from other food cultures, Lunya’s winter menu is full of slow cooked and comforting dishes designed to happily ease us through the cold season.
We tucked into a mysterious dish of fideuà noodles blackened and enriched by a rich squid ink and seafood sauce, topped with tender cuttlefish.
The more relaxed Spanish approach to eating and drinking also allows diners to dictate the flow of food to suit the mood and occasion. Lunya’s bar or restaurant works just as well as a pit stop for a warming snifter and a nibble during a day of shopping, as it does for a full sit-down meal with family or friends.
Lunya are well known for their incredible range of Spanish artisan cheeses and cured meats, but customers can also choose to graze from a wide selection of hot meat, fish and vegetarian tapas.
Cauliflower and manchego frituras served with Romesco sauce is a great example of a re-invented dish. Although the Spanish excel in creating delicious vegetable dishes, their Mediterranean climate means cauliflowers aren’t often found on tapas menus. Using traditional manchego cheese as its core, Lunya have taken the classic cauliflower and cheese combination and incorporated it into frituras, a popular battered and deep-fried Spanish snack.
They’ve even sneaked a little membrillo, the traditional quince paste, into the batter to complement the cheese. Romesco is a very traditional dipping sauce made by emulsifying sweet roasted red peppers, olive oil, garlic and sherry vinegar with crushed Spanish hazelnuts to create a moreish texture.
From the Mar i Muntana section of the menu, which celebrates Catalan cuisine’s rich tradition of combining ingredients from the land and sea, we enjoyed merluza; pan fried hake with crispy smoked pancetta. The firm-fleshed white fish sat on a pile of samfaina, which is a Spanish take on the better known ratatouille. This heavier, fuller flavoured tomato sauce incorporates ripe Mediterranean vegetables (which Lunya gets delivered weekly from Barcelona’s famous La Boqueria market) cooked al dente.
Staying with the sea, we tucked into a mysterious dish of fideuà noodles blackened and enriched by a rich squid ink and seafood sauce, topped with tender cuttlefish. Noodle paella is popular in the Southern Valencian region and is a tradition in the area which used to be known as the Catalan lands. This is a much loved tapas which we always order when we see it, as it takes us by surprise – every time. It’s not a looker and the noodles on top often seem to have almost dried out, but each delve of the fork brings up heady soft pasta which has totally absorbed the intensely flavoured stock.
Lunya’s autumnal meat tapas are mostly slow cooked and full flavoured. Estofado is a rich Catalan beef stew infused with orange and aromatic cinnamon. A little PX sherry added towards the end of the cooking time adds a touch of dark sweetness. They use ox cheek which has been cooked down until soft and glutinous, and serve it with a luxurious celeriac puree. Owner Peter Kinsella refers to these as ‘little balls of clotted cream’ thanks to their satisfying richness.
Carilladas is a dish of acorn-fed Ibérico pork cheeks, slow-braised for around four hours in stock with herbs and vegetables and served over soft white Navarra alubias beans. Premium quality beans and pulses are used a lot in traditional Catalan cooking, adding a velvety and comforting quality to many dishes.
Dates are a fairly traditional Christmas dish in Spain and Lunya stuff their Datillas with Valdeon blue cheese from the Picos region before wrapping each one with salty and perfectly fatty pancetta from Leon which has been through a double smoking process (these can also be made available without pancetta.) We reckon they make the perfect Christmas snack, but are so sweetly rich, they’re definitely best for sharing – even for us.
Lunya put as much effort into their wine selection as they do into their food menu and they’ll be more than happy to recommend a glass or a bottle to match the dishes you choose. From over 150 food-friendly wines on their list (and 40 served by the glass), we sampled a zingy white Catalan wine made from garnatxa grapes, aptly named ‘Sorbet’ thanks to its almost lemony freshness.
To match the richer dishes such as pork, beef and fideuà, we enjoyed a bottle of Irrepetible, a soft Malbec from maker Altolandon, with well developed fruity characteristics robust enough to work well with highly flavoured food.
Whether you’re popping into Manchester for a bit of Christmas shopping or a traditional annual panto visit, make sure to pop into Lunya for anything from a light bite, washed down with a warming vermouth, to a fine selection of autumnal Catalan comfort food.
Lunya is in Barton Arcade, Deansgate.
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