Mesa Lunga

But stingy with the wine. Less than a standard drink. Nuts which are listed as starters came out last.

If you love tapas this is the place to go, amazing food great service and an incredible bar from top shelf tequila & scotch and a wine list to die for, you must give this restaurant a go.
They also do great degustation nights with matching top shelf liquor.
Get on it peeps

Good tapas
I love their little duck thingos, the cheese and the bread and jamon. I also like their selection of Spanish wines by the glass. 4 of us ate and drank well for $ 150. Nice to sit outside on a balmy night. Service has slowly improved with new manager.

I made a reservation at Mesa Lunga for a client dinner, thinking it would be a reliable venue. I was also really looking forward to Mesa Lunga having had fairly good experiences before. Unfortunately though, the experience was unsatisfactory (and that’s being kind) and mildly embarrassing given that I had exposed clients to it.
So here’s a snapshot of the dinner:
Food — — The food was very good. It was tapas style, varied and delicious. They catered well for different dietary requirements. In fact, the vegetarians got more dishes than the others.
Service — — Possibly the worst service I have ever experienced in Adelaide. From the beginning, the service was rude and pushy. At best, they were indifferent. We had a 6pm reservation for drinks at Sangria with a 6.30pm seating for dinner at ML. Staff interrupted us at 6.15 demanding we take our seats for dinner — they didn’t even introduce themselves or say hello. Another example was at the end when we were finishing our last glass of wine. We asked for water, and we were told only if we paid the bill (?!!). And then we were told we had to take our drinks next door since we had finished eating, even though there were still other diners still seated.
Wine — — reasonably good variety and good recommendations.
acoustics — — a good buzz but not too loud to have a conversation.
Décor — — good set up with a variety of table settings. Very cool set up with Sangria next door.

Tapas is always the perfect meal for someone like me, who has a light appetite and a voracious desire to sample a few bites of everything on any delectable looking menu. As such, dinner at Mesa Lunga seems an attractive option. However after a couple of visits I have to say I’ll be looking elsewhere to satisfy my tapas needs, though at this stage I haven’t fallen in love with any tapas Adelaide has to offer.
For the most part the seating at Mesa Lunga is at communal tables, where spots are separated by little pot plants. (Presumably so you don’t accidentally spend the whole evening accidentally making eye contact in the dimly lit restaurant with a total stranger, though this may have its perks.) If you do get a separate table they’re quite small and snugly tucked together. In addition, it gets very noisy in the restaurant with the tiled floors and open space doing little to dampen the sound. Sadly, virtually yelling at your dining companions seems to ruin the ambiance created by the lovely décor.
The menu has a number of options, but these seemed quite limited for vego/​vegans so keep that in mind should you have any dietary requirements. Most recently, I opted for a squid, potato, chickpea and chorizo stew, leek and manchego croqueta, empanadillas and duck shanks. The duck was absolutely delicious, it basically fell off the bone and I hoovered up all the scraps from my plate. The croquettes were very rich and were an adult version of mozarella sticks. However, the empanadillas were inedibly dry and bland, I believe mine may have been overcooked. The stew was equally disappointing, with a bizarre almost reheated taste and a combination of flavours I just couldn’t enjoy. I have been before and had similar hit and miss experiences with the menu, though I was desperate to love it.

I love tapas, mainly because I’m indecisive.
Be sure to get here early and grab a drink in the sangria bar next door. Then when your table is ready bring your drinks with you.
I ordered a prosciutto pizza based on the reviews I’d read on Unilocal beforehand and wasn’t disappointed. I tried a selection of dishes from squid, meatballs, and potatoes (which despite my poor description were absolutely delicious, like a chunkier more flavour some chip)
The staff are attentive but not over bearing and are more than happy to give you recommendations.
I also adored the seating, I was in a party of two seated at a long table. However we were separated from other parties by large plants– again my description doesn’t do it justice for how cute they looked.

Last Saturday night, I came with a group of 12 to dinner at Mesa Lunga. A friend of mine made the booking that Monday in advance, and we had to settle for outdoor seating since others had booked all the inside seating already.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to sit in the outdoor area with the heating and enclosed clear blinds. Instead, we were seated at the round tables closer to the street. This was because there was a mistake in the booking and they thought we were coming Friday instead of Saturday. For this mistake, the owner of the restaurant gave us free sangria drinks for all of us. He was very friendly and handled the situation very well.
I would say that overall, I enjoyed the service at Mesa Lunga as they made sure to check up on us and see how we were doing. The pizzas were amazing, and the pork belly dishes were memorable! The mini crab filled burger was something I would come back for.

I love that waiting staff offer to just send out a variety of dishes. They ask what you like and can’t have and then simply bring out dish after dish of scrumptious awesomeness. There was actually a point where we thought that we had set ourselves up for exceeding our budget but the sangria dampened those nagging thoughts pretty thoroughly. When the bill came a very pleasant surprise — it cost less then we expected for more than we intended to order. Very very impressed.
All of the dishes were just gorgeous but a special mention has to go to the pork belly and paella. I have never had such good pork belly. Crispy skin with melt in your mouth meat, and much leaner than you usual find. The sauce was to die for. I am a huge fan of paella and I am yet to find a good one in Adelaide until Mesa Lunga. Absolutely perfect. My friend and I were literally scraping the plate to get at the last little morsels.
Great place to go if you enjoy sharing good food and good wine with fab friends.

The food served here is Tapas. It is perfect when you are out with a group of friends for sharing the small dishes around allowing you to have the chance to try everything. I usually order the $ 45 per head banquet which allows the staff to bring out a random assortment of dishes.
The food is delicious and i love the interior aesthetic. However it can be rather squishy and loud at times. This doesn’t bother me you just need to be prepared for it!
The ‘Bomb Alaska’ was my favourite dessert item, yep I don’t care if I get fat.
Oh and the sangria is the perfect accompaniment to the tapas, my favourite is the White Sangria :)

I went to Mesa lunga for a friend’s birthday. We were able to book a big table outside for a large group, and they had the heaters on outside which in Winter is a nice touch.
My friend rang in advance and advised a vegetarian was part of the booking. I also let them know (nicely) when we arrived.
Beautiful looking meat tapas kept arriving as we ordered the 35 dollar selection. My omni friends said they were delicious. 40 minutes in one of my friends reminded the waitress our party included a vege. So fifteen minutes later they brought out some mushrooms, then some eggplant. And the waitress made a point of putting them in front of me and advising they were vegetarian (thanks, I was confused) and also made a joke on how they don’t like vegetarians. Lol. I had to pay $ 35 bucks like everyone else.
Mesa Lunga gets 3 stars because despite the food/​poor service (but only poor service for me, the meat eaters were served nicely) I had a great time. The sangrias were delicious, and it’s a cool place to be! + my meat eating friends were delighted by the food. I might go back for a drink and a snack, but I won’t have high expectations of them accommodating to my food needs.

Mesa Lunga is the definitive place to go for tapas in Adelaide. Whether it be a light meal with a partner, or a feast for a group, this restaurant will sort you out.
The hams hanging from the ceiling give the place a very authentic, traditional feel, contrasting the sleek and modern décor. For someone like me who is largely unfamiliar with tapas, the waiter arranged for my table to try a little of everything on the menu. Sure enough, it was all incredibly tasty, and we were able to try a large variety of different foods. The shared meal creates a really friendly atmosphere, and with some fine wine on the side, you can’t go wrong.
If you’re deciding to go with any more than three people, I recommend making a booking. I came here with a group of four on a busy night, and we were squeezed into a small table next to the bar. Fortunately we were moved to a larger dining table later on in the evening, but sitting close to the bar in a large group whilst bar staff scrape passed you can’t be too comfortable for the entire night.

Is anything wrong with this place? No, not really. It is beautifully designed and the food is good but it is abit on the expensive side for me. At night when you’re looking for a classy place to go with friends, pre-​dinner drinks and a good meal, by all means Mesa Lunga. If you want a place where you can dress up and be amongst people who look just as slick, by all means, Mesa Lunga.
If you’re looking for a place where you can have a relaxing meal in a quiet sort of environment, then Mesa Lunga can be good, except at night on the weekends when the crowds really start to pour in. Mesa Lunga has the reputation of being the place to be if you want to have good Sangria in the city, and because of this, it draws a large amount of people over the weekends, which can make it kind of cramped and noisy, especially in the sangria bar.
The staff have always been friendly and helpful and the food is definitely delicious. I highly recommend Mesa Lunga for the type of customers it is trying to attract. For me though, at the end of the day as a restaurant, the menu is simply too pricey for me to enjoy it fully, and when it gets really busy and cramped on the weekends, it really isn’t my thing. That’s pretty much the thick and thin of it.

I’m a sucker for a beautiful glittery tapas bar. The people who live there are beautiful and glittery also. it’s just a lovely lovely scene that I would like to capture in a snow globe. I haven’t had much sleep.
I wont say that Mesa is inexpensive, but if you’re having a function I think that the set menu options are pretty reasonable for what is available. I also appreciate restaurants that call for their patrons to make an effort in their appearance, if you don’t you’ll be sorry, this is where the beautiful people dine on Mini Hamburgers. I am not kidding.
The bar staff are very helpful in matching a wine with your selection of tapas, I always recommend getting advice on this so that you can get the most complimentary wine on the list, bar staff know best. Great for lulling your date into a romance induced stupor, a must location for a first date.

If you’re tight this is not the place for you. I also wouldn’t recommend it if you’re threatened by large numbers of attractive people. If you have a very important date and want to impress, then by all means, unleash your wallet on this beautiful restaurant.
The food is so far out of my league I should probably have been asked to leave when I went there for dinner. I mean, I had half a Violet Crumble in my handbag. The spatchcock actually melted in my mouth. That sentence sounds wrong but it was so, so right. Incredible food, we almost needed some sort of symphony orchestra to accompany us while we ate.
If you’ve never been get the chefs choice for $ 35, so you can try a selection of the tapas on offer. If you’ve walked past you already know it’s a glittering, impeccable space. Beautiful dark timber and romantic lighting and enough perfectly polished glassware to blind a woman. The bar staff are chatty and welcoming and seem unaware of your placing on the social status and attractiveness scale.
Kate ‘Wisdom for free’ Moss once said ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.’ Obviously she’s never tried the tapas.