MoVida restaurant overview

Updated October 12, 2026,first published November 18, 2024

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It’s the city bolthole that burns like an eternal flame, guiding you up the laneway and past any other restaurant in your path. Slip inside, where pendant lights hang like upended bouquets and shelves of wine climb up the walls.

The hefty bar is the perfect perch for a glass and tapas, perhaps a generous skewer of goat, roasted dark as fruit cake and topped with a hail of raisins and pine nuts. A whisper-thin crouton supports a single anchovy, gleaming like brown patent leather, slicked with smoked tomato sorbet.

Longer visits might lead to a spectacular pan of bomba rice spiked with briney bisque and pops of finger lime, a huddle of Shark Bay honey bugs underneath. Or perhaps a firm coil of pork and paprika sausage topped with scorched-edge bullhorn peppers and surrounded by a scarlet sesame ajada. Shine on, MoVida.

Best for: Quick stops headlined by top-notch tapas.

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Purpose-built for long lunches of both the business and pleasure varieties.

The last word in feasts from the sea.