This Restaurant Makes You Feel Naughty, Excited And Cherished All At The Same Time

One thing you’ll certainly notice on the way in is the slicing machine where a skilled operator cuts salumi. I’d hazard a guess that machine cost at least €10,000, if not more. It looks like a Rolls Royce perched on a bench slicing through hunches of pig, making wafer-thin slices. 

You can’t ignore the salumi plate as a starter and the meats were indeed spectacular. It was, however, the burrata that came with them that stole the show – it was easily the best I’ve ever had.

The real beauty about this sort of food (there were olives, artichokes, bread and other bits too) is that it brings people together. Reaching across the table, eating with your hands and tasting everything breaks the ice, if it needs breaking. 

We knew the portions would be big so we tried to stop eating, but it was a struggle. I actually had a lobster pasta which was deep, rich and flecked with wonderful fresh flesh. As with all lobster dishes it was the flavour extracted from the shells into the sauce that made it.

If there was a slight disappointment, it was the main courses. Not because they weren’t good, but because the starters had set the bar so high. I never wanted that first course experience to end, such was the quality, and anything that followed would be tough to replicated. My ‘drunken pig’ and the fillet steaks the lads had were superb, but we were gasping for air given the size of the portions. 

The final cherry on top, both literally and metaphorically, was the dessert trolly. Wonderfully nostalgic, perfectly kitsch and absolutely on point with the overall decor. The waiter handling it made the whole experience joyous, fun and everything a good meal should be. 

As the four of us sat there savouring everything, we rubbed our bellies with content. The bill was close to €400, but on occasions like this (a yearly catch up with the oldest of friends) and with the quality so high, you don’t even blink at a bill like that. 

If a restaurateur told you a year ago they were going to have waiters in tuxedos, a €10,000 slicing machine, 1960s Italian food, a dessert trolley, unisex toilets and put it all in a basement on Drury Street, you’d probably have dismissed them entirely. It could never possibly work, you’d have thought. 

Well it does, and it works bloody well. 

Luna makes you feel naughty, excited, cherished as a customer, and above all else gives you a dining experience you could never have conjured up in your own head. 

I waited a long time with some high expectations but Jesus, this place doesn’t disappoint.

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