Dining Out: Luso

Charlotte Street doesn’t lack for restaurants. From tapas bars to trattorias, you can eat your way across Europe in the space of a few blocks. But this September, it welcomes a new arrival that feels quietly different: Luso, a Portuguese-inspired restaurant from MJMK that’s intent on showing London a broader, more nuanced view of Iberian cooking.

MJMK know their way around this territory. They are the team behind Casa do Frango and, until recently, Lisboeta — a restaurant that helped introduce the capital to Lisbon’s more contemporary flavours. But with Luso, and with Leandro Carreira (an Mugaritz alumnus) in as Consultant Executive Chef, the ambition is bigger: a 90-cover space that celebrates the food of Portugal’s Atlantic coastline, with Andalusian, Basque and Galician influences layered in for good measure.

The menu is shaped by sea, land and wood-fire cooking. That might sound lofty, but in practice it means ingredients treated with respect, traditions honoured, and a table full of food that manages to feel both elevated and deeply comforting.

Dinner began with Algarvian-style pickled carrots, a deceptively simple dish that set the tone: sharp, bright, with a bite that wakes the palate. From there, Ibérico ham — sliced thin, silky and rich — reminded us that sometimes the simplest things carry the greatest impact.

The lobster pastry roll was indulgence done with restraint, the sweet meat wrapped in delicate pastry that was almost too fragile to touch. Then came the frango piri piri, a whole baby chicken grilled over flames until the skin blistered, smoky and hot, but the flesh beneath still impossibly moist. It was a dish that demanded fingers and napkins, and rightly so.

A plate of crispy aubergine with smoked butter delivered an earthy depth, while the grilled half wild bream with corn migas showed off the kitchen’s deftness with fish — the bream tender and just on the right side of charred, the migas adding texture and heft. The leitão, Ibérico suckling pig roasted until the skin crackled like brittle glass, was the showstopper. Rich, celebratory, but never heavy-handed.

If that wasn’t enough, the wild sea bass baked in salt arrived at the table with a sense of theatre, cracked open in front of us to reveal flesh that flaked with barely a touch. Around all this, a tomato salad sang with late-summer ripeness and a bowl of crispy potatoes proved impossible not to finish.

Dessert didn’t fall away. A chocolate mousse with olive oil and salt was intense, silken and grown-up. The toucinho do céu, an almond tart, was the kind of thing you find in Lisbon cafés but polished here for a London crowd. And the fermented rice pudding with strawberry was a quietly brilliant surprise: sweet, tangy, and layered with more complexity than such a homely dish usually suggests.

The wine list deserves its own mention. Portugal remains one of Europe’s best-kept secrets when it comes to wine, and Luso leans into that with a thoughtful, well-curated selection. From bright, mineral-driven whites to deep Douro reds, everything feels carefully chosen to complement the food. A handful of European bottles round things out, but the Portuguese pours are where the fun lies.

Portuguese food has often lived in the shadow of Spain in London. Luso looks set to change that. It’s not trying to dazzle with gimmicks, nor is it leaning too heavily on clichés. Instead, it offers a dining experience that is unpretentious but polished, celebratory without being stuffy.

With its candlelit intimacy, a menu that feels designed for sharing, and service that makes you feel like a guest rather than a customer, Luso is exactly the sort of place you’ll want to return to — whether for a long dinner with friends, a glass of wine and a few plates after work, or a weekend blow-out.

Book a table at Luso.