La Luna

13/15 Westgate,Halifax

Rating

Venue La Luna Cafe, Bar and Diner

Tel 01422 363755

Opening hours 8.30am through to last food orders at 8.30pm Monday to Thursday; 8am to last food orders at 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays; Sundays 10am to last food orders at 8pm.

Children Yes

Disabled access Yes and exceptionally clean and disabled-friendly toilets

The bill £31.85 including a bottle of wine

Would you go back? Absolutely

THERE must be few restaurants with a real buzz about them these days.

Heard of the dark side of the moon? Well, La Luna is the bright side.

It’s down Westgate in Halifax town centre sandwiched between the old market and The Piece Hall – a covered walkway of restaurants, small bars and shops that has that cosmopolitan, nay even continental, feel.

Walk into La Luna and the first thing that hits you is the wine.

It’s everywhere with wall racks towering as high as the restaurant’s two storeys.

They’re not for show. These are full bottles and the staff are getting them down from their lofty perches every day.

La Luna does not have an extensive menu. It doesn’t have to for what it does it does really well. That’s why the place was jampacked.

It’s an all-day affair, starting with breakfasts before moving on to lunch with sandwiches – but a long way from your dull ham and tomato affair.

Here there’s bacon and brie, Italian meatballs, crayfish, sweet chilli chicken, cajun chicken, roasted hot beef and onion, chargrilled Mediterranean vegetable ciabetta. Most cost a tad less then a fiver.

Starting to get the picture?

There’s also burgers with chunky chips – but not after 5pm.

After then we’re into tapas territory.

Most are priced between £3.95 and £4.95 plus mains such as steak, cajun chicken and sea bream.

We got crafty, going for the chilli nachos from the tapas, but sharing them as a starter.

It was a busy dish featuring gherkins and chilli.

It got us thinking – shove cheese and nachos in front of the kids and add a load of healthy stuff too. Surely a win-win scenario.

It was a cracking starter – would the mains of chicken fajita and piri piri prawns from the tapas live up to it?

Fear not. Restaurants aren’t this busy without very good reason.

The chicken – resplendent on its sizzling platter – was tender and succulent, served with extra large slices of green and red pepper and onion.

The prawns came from the tapas menu – you can mix and match – and were large, juicy fellows in a lemon, chilli, garlic and olive oil. It begged for french bread to mop it up.

Other dishes include pasta with tomato, basil and fresh chilli, mushroom carbonara, chicken Caesar salad, homemade fishcakes and stuffed field mushrooms filled with feta cheese, toasted pine nuts and raisins.

No room for dessert, but had time for coffee.

Some would opt for small teacups. Not here. These were large mugs of latte at £2 each.

La Luna also came across as a relaxed, happy place.

One woman laughed so much I began to fear for her health – she could have inhaled her food at any point.

Service was very friendly and exceedingly fast.

The waiter was clearly very busy, but we asked for a bottle of sparkling water thinking it was going take at least five minutes.

He was back inside a minute with the water and a big smile.

Just from people-watching it was obvious La Luna has a loyal repeat following.

That counts for a lot these days.

The proof here was in everything but the pudding we couldn't squeeze in.