Updated ,first published
Portuguese$$
Modern Portuguese cafe-restaurant for a quick lunch or long family meal.
You can eat inside at Lunas, and it’s a rather handsome dining space, but as summer creeps into the evenings, the courtyard edged by grass, olive trees, native shrubs and curling vines is the place to be.
Bring some pals and load up at one of the large tables with chef Jose Silva’s Portuguese comfort cooking. There are olives marinated with rosemary, lemon and orange zest; “Grandma’s” bread, which is extra fluffy and soft; octopus rice; smoked bacalhau; and a side of garlicky pan-charred kale cooked with brown butter and lager.
Few Petersham moments are as lovely as eating the piri piri spatchcock – tangy with preserved lemon and roasted sugarloaf cabbage – as cicadas buzz high in the surrounding gum trees at dusk.
Dessert is pudim de leite, its silkiness coming from condensed milk, beneath a caramel deglazed with port, and there’s good strong coffee no matter how late you dine (not to mention Portuguese and Australian wines and cocktails).
Good to know: Silva grew up in Stanmore and also runs pastel de nata destination Sweet Belem down the road.
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Last visited: 2025
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