Food | Restaurants

Restaurant Review: Lupulo in Chelsea

Lupulo

NYT Critics’ Pick
★★
Portuguese
$$$
835 Sixth Avenue, Chelsea
212-290-7600

By PETE WELLS JULY 21, 2015

If George Mendes did not have such a strong grip on the flavors and aromas of Portugal, Lupulo might have slipped away from him. It can be a confusing restaurant at first, its messages mixed, its fairly simple concept fuzzed over with complications. But give the place a chance, and you can find clarity in the smells of garlic and wood smoke that fill the dining room; in the way sweet paprika and cilantro sidle up to each other in olive oil; and in the fresh, firm seafood, the grilled sardines and carabineros, red as a lobster, their heads dripping with juices that are as rich and intense as any sauce. The restaurant may be unfocused, but the cooking isn’t.

Mr. Mendes’s basic idea for Lupulo, which opened a few blocks south of Herald Square in April, was straightforward enough. The name means “hops,” and the place is his take on the beer-centered Portuguese taverns called cervejarias...