‘A place for carnivores’ – Ibai is a London restaurant that celebrates Basque Country beef

Set across the ground floor of a former linoleum factory, Ibai aims to bring a flavour of the French Basque Country to the City via a live-fire kitchen and a focus on Txuleta beef from the region’s retired dairy cows. This is a joint venture between Richard Foster – former executive head chef at Chiltern Firehouse – and beef importers William Sheard and Nemanja Borjanović, and in the seven months since it first opened its doors, the buzz around Ibai has been notable and justified.

Slick but not stuffy, with a clear point of view and a succinct menu that knows what it does and does it very well, Ibai is the perfect addition to EC1, nestled between Smithfield Market and the Barbican – institutions culinary and cultural that, you suspect, would both approve of their new neighbour.

The Mood

Mixing the practical, industrial sensibilities of the location’s previous factory guise with an eye for earthy tones and understated elegance, designers Box 9 (who also created the interiors for acclaimed east London Italian Manteca and SE1 Greek restaurant Oma) have created an ambience that manages to make Ibai’s sizeable, 80-cover space feel vibrant yet relaxed. With tables predominantly centred within semi-circular, open booths of dark wood and brown leather, the layout keeps each party in their own bubble without closing the room off: a clever piece of restaurant feng shui. Predominantly lamp-lit, the open kitchen and its roaring, high flames add a flash of theatre and a focal light source; all nestled beneath a network of exposed pipes and vents that give the venue a harder, more masculine feel, the effect is of somewhere slick and City-appropriate but also impressively welcoming.

The Food

Ibai is a place for carnivores. Even before you broach the central steak offering, the standout morsels from the starter menu come festooned with slivers of beef or draped in ham. The signature Croque Ibai is decadence personified: a French hot sandwich, souped up beyond recognition with carabinero prawns, unctuous boudin noir (a traditional blood sausage) and Tomme de Brebis cheese, and then slathered in hot honey. It is perhaps a relief to remember that St Bartholomew's Hospital is within spitting distance, should it all prove a little too much. A plate of Le Noir de Bigorre ham and crisps, studded with piquant smoked piparra peppers has become – justifiably – one of Ibai’s talking points, arriving as it does like the ultimate bar snack, while a special of crab and wagyu pintxos is as intoxicating as that A-list combination sounds: rich, flakey crab meat piled on top of crisp baguette and housed beneath a just-seared slice of glistening beef.

The steak, however, is the thing, and at Ibai they keep it simple. There are three options – a Black Angus, a Fullblood Wagyu and a Galician Blond – all available as either T-bone, rib or sirloin and uniformly cut (wagyu aside) to 1kg servings. Utilising a French cooking method involving a three-level grill and a resting cage, it takes around 45 minutes for each steak to be cooked – a lengthier piece of ceremony that means that, when it does arrive, perfectly charred and yet gleaming pink inside, the effect is borderline theatrical. Buttery and soft, a 1kg T-bone might seem a monstrous amount for two but it goes down surprisingly easily. There are fries on the menu, should you wish, but a simple, mint-studded green salad and a bowl of plump tomatoes should suffice. Do not skimp, however, on the adornments: though meat of this quality more than holds its own without any help, an anchovy and herb salsa is a fragrant, palette-awakening treat, while, for those of a more fromage-based persuasion, an Ossau-Iraty cheese and black pepper sauce is a pleasing twist on a standard peppercorn.

The wine list is extensive and surprisingly varied in terms of price point, ranging from more-than-drinkable glasses at £10 through to bottles far into triple digits. With a succinct cocktail menu and an array of desserts that beg to be found room for, including a house special Ibai Gateau Basque with poached rhubarb that is equal parts buttery richness and zingy clarity, you’ll leave Clerkenwell looking to book a French Basque holiday before the year is out.

Ibai, 90 Bartholomew Close, London EC1A 7BN, ibai.london