When a car showroom for a certain British luxury car manufacturer closed here recently, many might have thought that it was yet another sign of the beastly recession bearing down on us here in Luxembourg. “It won’t be too long before we’re fighting over the last chicken in the supermarket”, you might have said to yourself. Spare a thought too, for the poor showroom owner. A man now bereft of wealthy tenant, not knowing where the next million was coming from! But help was soon at hand.

In a town where, if you throw a stuffed briefcase out your window, you are almost guaranteed to hit a diplomat, lawyer or banker on the head, it wasn’t long before some of the former were making themselves at home where once the gleaming chrome and leather had stood. Our Portuguese brethren had come to the rescue, opening their consulate, and perhaps coincidentally, providing lunchtime clients for the also recently opened Portuguese café next door.

From the outside, Café Um Stamminet on the Route de Longwy in Merl, has the look of a place that has been around forever, because, in one guise or another, it has. Once the archetypical, neighbourhood Luxembourgish bar with elderly clientele, where food was a bag of crisps and a glass of Bofferding, and the odd high stakes card game was rumoured once to have taken place, it has now taken on another, more homely atmosphere. A young Portuguese family seem to have taken over and given the place a much needed lick of paint (it‘s now a warm Mediterranean yellow ochre), and are providing what’s arguably the best value lunch menu in the neighbourhood, with a distinctly Iberian flavour.

I’ve been known to bemoan the lack of what the Spanish call the ’Menu del Dia’, here in Luxembourg (and pretty much everywhere else come to think of it). The idea being that everybody and anybody should be able to afford a hearty lunch. Um Stamminet provides exactly that, offering a choice of two main courses which change daily and dessert/coffee for the snippy price of €9.50. I’ve eaten there three or four times to date, and tried everything from lentil and chorizo stews, mixed grills, skewered shrimp, beef casserole, grilled chicken and fish, followed by home made desserts like apple tart or crème brulee. All good to very good. If there is a standout dish, it is the Portuguese classic Bacalhau a Bras, a salt cod, potato and egg creation. I’ve tried this before in a more salubrious restaurant in the city centre and it didn’t even come close to being as delicious as Um Stamminet’s version. The good wholesome, freshly made food is served in generous portions (I‘ve even been offered seconds!) wine can be ordered by the demi at 2.50 a go, and the service is prompt and polite. Business is brisk at lunchtime so get there early if you want to ensure you have a choice of dish as they have been known to run out, and you don’t want to end up scrapping over that last chicken, do you?

Um Stamminet
294 route de Longwy
Merl
TEL: +352 26 45 89 61