So what is trained computer person doing baking cookies and scones? It is hard to get an answer from Carla Rego of Lusa Bakery and Café in Oxford, Mississippi.
She is a delightful lady but a bit private, of course, no picture. While she may be quiet, her bakery products speak well, and loudly for her.
Carla has a degree in computer science but took her apron and love of baking from the kitchen table to create Lusa, one of Oxford’s unique foodie hideaways.
“It was difficult at first, you know,” Rego said. “It’s not the same baking at home and at the café, I had to learn over time what would sell and how much to cook.”
Rego opened Lusa in 2010 offering a range of fresh baked pastries, sandwiches, quiches and salads. Open for breakfast, lunch, and coffee from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, Lusa is located in North Lamar Plaza. The restaurant seats 90 people.
The Rego’s are originally from Portugal and named Lusa for Lusitania, the original name for Portugal.
The menu includes a wide variety of sweets and unsweet pastries, desserts including cheesecakes, cake slices, chocolate eclairs, brownies, cupcakes and many other as well as a variety of cookies, all made from scratch.
Quiches, salads, soups and sandwiches mostly served with Lusa’s grandmother’s popular bread enrich the menu. The weekend menu includes cinnamon rolls and brioche bread as well.
Rego says Lusa benefits from many events held in Oxford from football, baseball, and basketball games, to Double Decker.
Lusa’s breakfast menu includes a range of items, Irish Coffee, Lusa’s homemade granola, parfait, and a European breakfast – choice of one pastry and a side of fresh fruit or a side of hash browns for just $7.49.
There are three breakfast plates: Chorizo Eggs (three scrambled with Spanish chorizo), Sofrito (scrambled eggs with Portuguese sofrito) and the traditional Southern Breakfast. Add this to the several breakfast sandwiches and quiches. And, for those who have enjoyed too much of Oxford social life on a football weekend, there is a Screwdriver (fresh squeezed orange juice and vodka) on the breakfast menu.
The European and Southern Style breakfast includes eggs, bacon sausage, hash brown casserole, chorizo eggs, Portuguese sofrito eggs combined with assorted pastries.
Sandwiches range in price from $9.95 to $10.20 and include; Panini ham and turkey, tuna, roasted pork, BBQ pork, Dylan (spicy sauté mushrooms with smoked ham, Havarti, and Tabasco), chicken salad, prosciutto (Spanish Serrano ham, smoked gouda, red onion and tomato), club, smoked salmon BLT and Mushrooms and Camembert, an open-face sandwich with spicy sauté mushrooms and melted camembert cheese.
“Oxford has such a diversity of events that bring people to the community,” Rego said, adding she knows when there is an activity in town by the traffic through the café door.
At 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month during the academic year, Lusa hosts “The Science Cafe” for members of the University science departments and the public. This long lasting relationship with the Ole Miss science faculty and Lusa has an obvious tie in a for a computer science person who owns a bakery.
“The science cafe is an event organized by the University to talk about science to the general public. We’ve been hosting it at Lusa since it opened. Ole Miss professors and invited professors from other universities come to Lusa to present various topics in science in a way that general public can understand,” Rego explained.
If you are visiting Oxford and have not tried Lusa, you are missing a treat that has been recognized online and in publications like Zamato, Yelp, Oxford Menus, MapQuest, Show Me Menu, Eventful, Gifty and a host of other publications and websites, including HottyToddy’s Eating Oxford.
While all of them sell, the pastries reign supreme at the café.
“Pastries best sellers are Lusa’s chocolate croissants, cinnamon rolls and scones of several flavors, normally orange, cranberry, mocha, and blueberry,” Rego said. “The chocolate éclair or probably the scones are most popular,”
I’ll have the éclair!
By Jim Roberts, a HottyToddy.com contributor
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