Café Lucia

Send us more details about this place.

The 2011/12 edition of The List's Eating & Drinking Guide is out now – only £5.95 (+p&p).

This review is taken from the current (2011) edition.

The Festival Theatre’s spacious ground-floor bar has long been a place to gather for a pre-concert drink, catch-up with friends or spot of people watching through the giant windows. It might not be the first place in the area that springs to mind for a bite to eat, but it has a crowd of devoted regulars – mainly shoppers and local office workers – who can often be found making use of the free wifi or holding impromptu meetings over their lunch breaks. A new catering firm took over the operation in summer 2010 and seeks to bring a fresh, Mediterranean vibe to the food offered here. As well as soups, deli sandwiches and salads there is a good range of hot food, all with a refreshing cooked-in-house feel. Think gnocchi in a creamy sauce with peas and parmesan, or crispy beer-battered fish, served as nature intended with a mountain of searingly hot chips. The menu holds few temptations in the way of desserts, but there is a selection of scones, pastries and tray bakes displayed on the bar if something more than ice-cream is called for.

• High point: Watching people hurry down Nicolson Street as you relax with a cuppa
• Low point: Not much in the way of desserts