It wasn’t so much the fact that we were going out for dinner as the evening of the week that was unusual. It was also the restaurant’s intriguing name.
It was a Monday, the night when, since COVID, many restaurants have chosen to close. But not all do, and those that do not, such as Vantre in Paris’s 11th arrondissement, report full houses with many customers from the hospitality world enjoying their night off.
The restaurant we were heading to is called Ibai which translates as ‘river’ in Basque. But it was also for many years the name of a tapas bar in San Sebastián with a small, wonderful but extremely difficult-to-get-into restaurant in its basement. The only way to get a table, I was told, was to hang around the tapas bar, which I once did. (See The thrills and grills of San Sebastián.) Sadly, San Sebastián’s Ibai closed in 2021.
However, in June last year, Englishman Will Sheard and Nemanja Borjanovic – the pair behind Donostia in Marylebone – opened Ibai in London as ‘a fitting tribute’ to the original. The restaurant occupies a massive corner site on the edge of the City close to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, in an area that was conspicuously quiet as we wandered through the hospital site just before 7 pm last Monday.
Our welcome was smile-less bordering on gruff (as was, it turned out, the retrieval of our coats when we left). Eventually, the curtain was drawn back and we were shown to our table in what may be most accurately described as a theatrical setting.
The ceilings are high – they must be 20 feet tall, with kilometres of exposed extraction running all over. There are scores of empty wine bottles sitting on its window ledges. There is a vast open kitchen. The overriding impression is one of space. And space between tables, too, a feature that is growing less and less common in London restaurants today. There are tablecloths and linen napkins and the chairs are comfortable (although not suitable for hanging your jacket on). We were seated, welcomed by a smiling, very engaged older waitress, and began to enjoy the show.
We started with a glass of sherry, not that readily available in northern Spain but here on offer by the glass from Lustau. We chose one of Palo Cortado and one of Manzanilla which turned out to be an Amontillado. They sportingly substituted a third glass, of Manzanilla Pasada.
The wine list is extremely impressive, not just in its range but also in its pricing. According to Hugh Jones, their enthusiastic sommelier who used to work alongside Will Sheard at Majestic several years ago, the cash margin which they apply to bottles over a certain price (instead of a fixed percentage mark-up) has persuaded a number of customers to trade up. ‘A customer recently ordered a bottle of Primitivo on the list at £68, saw there was a bottle of Gaja Barbaresco for £320 and switched. He left very happy.’
We then ordered a couple of glasses of the delicious 2020 Finca Allende white Rioja from the list which, because of the restaurant’s location and menu, favours reds. There is an excellent range of wines from Italy, and from Spain there is Vega Sicilia Valbuena 2018 at £250, a Pingus 2009 at £950 and a Vega Sicilia Único 2013 for £500. These prices do not include our sighting of an immaculately dressed Pablo Álvarez, Vega Sicilia’s owner, as he walked past en route to the restaurant’s private dining room.
Into this inner sanctum I could not help but notice large plates of meat were being taken. Meat is the restaurant’s speciality. Black Angus (£105/kg), Galician Blond (£130/kg) and 14-year-old Galician Blond ox (£185/kg) are half of all the grill items listed – and the room provides the setting for a massive open grill. Behind it four young men, almost identical in T-shirts, aprons, beards and all with neat short hair, were working. On the counter to the right was a large basket of baguettes.
The chef on the extreme left caught my eye. He was obviously the main chef, taking the large ribs of meat as they were ordered and putting them on the grill, moving them up as they were cooked, and, as they were called away, deciding with a meat thermometer whether they were ready or needed a few more minutes on the fire. On the service side, there was a manager who brought out a tray with a couple of enormous raw steaks on it to show to a table of three middle-aged men. In this case the restaurant does not show off its meat in a glass-fronted meat fridge.
We eschewed the meat options. And when our waitress asked at the end of the meal, after I had paid my bill for £273.40 for two which included a glass of As Ladieras Garnacha 2021 from Cuevas de Arom, why I hadn’t ordered a steak, I replied ‘because I know how to cook a steak’.
Instead, JR began with the dish of soft Tolosa beans, creamy pumpkin and black truffle pictured above that delighted her, enlivened as this thick stew was by some jalapeño peppers. (In fact, all the food was pleasantly spicy.) This she followed with a Croque Ibai, four triangles of thin, toasted sandwiches stuffed with the unlikely mixture of carabinero (the red prawns that are a speciality of northern Spain), black pudding and ewe’s milk cheese. You can just see a little bit of it top left of our main picture. She also, oh so kindly, volunteered to help me finish off the two dishes I ordered.
First came a carabinero tartare with good baguette and salted butter (£4) but without the caviar (an extra £16) that was as colourful, fresh and tasted of the sea as if I had been by the Basque coast. Then I ordered king crab rice, expensive at £85, but I checked with our waitress before ordering that she could and would provide a doggy bag. This arrived in a round pan with the rice, red and hot underneath and several large pieces of king crab on top. It was as good as it should have been for the price and definitely offered the promise of warmer weather but unquestionably the rice in the rich sauce was the star of this dish, pictured at the top of this article.
The dessert list came and I ordered a slice of gateau Basque of which I ate a half. It was served on its own, as a slice on a white plate and without anything extra, without a fruit purée, for example, and was too sweet. This section of the meal was rather disappointing. Ibai, on one spacious floor, is one restaurant where a dessert trolley could be easily accommodated and add some theatre as it does at Maison François. (See also Bring back the dessert trolley!) It would be fun and might have tempted the young couple who sat next to us to spend a little more after sharing a first course and a vast steak and a glass of red wine.
Ibai is memorable: but the beginning and end of any dining experience are memorable too and in this instance both could have been improved.
Ibai 92 Bartholomew Close, London EC1A 7BN; tel: +44 (0)20 4597 3821. Open Monday–Friday 12–10 pm only.
See also these articles about dining in San Sebastián and these on London restaurants.
