Ibai review: This Basque restaurant is one of the best of the year
Creating a vibe is a tricky business. You can have the most beautiful dining room in the world and somehow end up with a tragic, inexplicable lack of vibes, even slipping into negative vibe territory, actively sucking the spirit out of your diners (see: Brasserie Zedel).
On the other hand, you can have a brutalist concrete space like Ibai, which looks a bit like an especially well-polished abattoir (and was indeed a factory in a previous life), that positively exudes vibes, putting you at ease from the moment you pass through its velvet curtain, conjuring the kind of mood that makes you want to drink altogether too many glasses of reassuringly expensive Spanish red on a school night (which, of course, I did).
Situated between St Paul’s and the Barbican, it joins the recently-opened Leydi at the Hyde Hotel as one of the few genuinely enticing restaurants in the area, which is remarkably sparse despite being one of the most historic parts of London. It’s the kind of place that clearly wants to attract a loyal, City-adjacent following, a point underscored by the fact it’s not even open at weekends. Day-trippers need not apply.
Who needs weekends when the place is this busy on a wet Wednesday evening, when each of the 80 seats were full, the open kitchen firing on all cylinders, the occasional flash of flame providing a dramatic backdrop for the food
And who needs weekends when the place is this busy on a wet Wednesday evening, when each of the 80 seats were full, the open kitchen firing on all cylinders, the occasional flash of flame providing a dramatic backdrop for the food.
If you have already heard about Ibai, I’ll wager it had something to do with the Galician Blond steak, cut from cattle reared for no less than 14 years by a bloke called Xose Portas (the Basque folk do love an ‘X’) on his farm in Pontevedra. These animals have been around long enough to develop a mature, quite chewy marbling and a thick wedge of fat. This isn’t melt-in-your-mouth wagyu, rather a deep, rich slab of meat that requires thoughtful – nay, mindful – chewing.
I split a 1kg T-bone – which rings through at a bank balance-destroying £120 – and this alone would have been sufficient to see me roll merrily home.
But Ibai is no steakhouse. It has the kind of menu that fills you with FOMO, practically forces you to over-order and all but guarantees you will return. I piled up a frankly obscene number of dishes and there wasn’t a dud note among them.
If I were forced to rank them, in reverse order, the list would go something like this (please imagine the daaah dah, da da da dah, da da daaaah jingle from Pick Of The Pops as you read this):
In at number six are the fries, which don’t aim to thrill but achieve that culinary golden ratio of crunch-to-fluffy potato, elevated further when paired with an ossau-iraty (Basque sheep’s cheese) and pepper dip. At five there’s the bread – often a bellwether for the overall quality of a restaurant – which is nigh-on essential for mopping up assorted oils and juices.
Next are the huge, meaty cep mushrooms, simply grilled and served with zero frills: make sure you order a plate to share. Coming in at number four are the anchovies, which are, again, happy to rely on the impeccable quality of ingredients, served on a glistening plate of top-notch olive oil.
The carabinero and boudin noir (black pudding) croque is an incredible creation, sweet and crisp and terribly, terribly rich
The poussin narrowly misses out on the top three, a plate of impossibly tender chicken marinaded in espelette pepper, lemon and garlic. It’s relatively slight for a main and, in my humble opinion, is better utilised as a side to be shared.
The carabinero tartare with Oscietra caviar takes its place on the podium. Made from vivid-red deep-sea prawns, this is a condensed hit of the ocean injected directly into your taste buds: slick, rather slimy and utterly delicious.
Part of me can’t believe this dish didn’t take the top spot, given it’s among the most moreish things I’ve eaten all year but the carabinero and boudin noir (black pudding) croque comes runner-up: an incredible creation, sweet and crisp and terribly, terribly rich. I will return for this alone.
But that Galician Blond… just wonderful. This isn’t all that surprising given Ibai is the creation of Lurra founder Nemanja Borjanović, a man who knows his way around a cow. Coming in a relatively fallow time for new restaurants, this is an assured and decadent opening, one that’s in the running for the best of the year.