My wife and I have been meaning to try Lupino for a while, as we live close by, but every time we wandered in, they were fully booked and couldn't help us -- that's a good sign, if you're not familiar with how these things work. But, then again, if you're not familiar with how these things work, why are you reading a restaurant review on Yelp?
But I digress.
Lupino is located on the relatively quiet Little Collins St, at the Paris end of town, and always has a bustling lunch crowd; as do many of the spots in this area. However, we were determined to try Lupino for dinner, and thought we'd have a go on a Sunday evening, a bit after 1800.
I mention the time because it's crucial to success: Make a reservation, or get in early.
We were told that they could accommodate us, but, we had to be out by 1945, which is fair enough. We figured we'd have a go, and were glad we did!
What we ate: They had a special "potato stack" on as an entree that I'm afraid I didn't catch the entire ingredients of, but, oh my gosh it was delicious. You'll really wish I bothered to take note of this one, cause it was fantastic.
We also shared a few of the salted cod croquettes which were also delicious. They normally come in clusters of 3, but since there were two of us, they added an extra to reduce the table fighting.
For our mains, my wife went with the lasagna and I went with the risotto with Italian sausage.
Before they delivered the mains my wife was describing what she was hoping it would come out as - her grandmother's lasagna, with her grandfather's tomato sauce. Thick slice, lots of layers, cheese, slightly crispy/burned on top.
I was a bit worried at this point; we'd never been to Lupino, had no idea what their lasagna was like - I didn't want her to be disappointed!
Insert the sound of a drum roll here.
Plate arrives. Wife's face is nothing but glee. Huge grin, exactly what she was after. I'm pretty sure she clapped just a little bit.
She even let me try a bit and wow, it was outstanding. May have to get that next time myself.
My risotto was perfect. It's so easy to get risotto wrong, over cooking it, under cooking it, etc, but nope, Lupino has done this before so they got it just right. The sausage was spectacularly flavoured, just right for the dish, not too strong over overpowering.
For dessert we shared a, erm, um, P* something pudding, which came with gingerbread ice cream, with real pieces of ginger in it. Drool. Drool. Wish I took a picture of the menu as they don't seem to have their menu online, but, trust me, it was wonderful.
Service was also good - I'm glad that they were able to sneak us in, and we finished right on time (including having a couple of grappa to finish off the meal with), no chance for coffee/tea (which we don't have anyway), bill arrived, we paid and were out before the table's new owners arrived. Everyone wins.
We will most definitely go back! read more