Anyone who has been to San Sebastian knows that though the city runs on pintxos, its lifeblood is steak; big, butch slabs of the stuff, charred and rugged on the outside, and as pink as Barbie’s dreamhouse paintjob in the middle. Ibai, a new Basque grill house appropriately close to Smithfield Market, fulfills its brief with immaculate poise. Of course, when one of your founders already runs two great Basque joints (Marylebone’s Lurra and Donostia) as well as founding Txuleta (the acclaimed beef business who supply high-end restaurants with prime Galician cow) success seems inevitable.
Situated inside a roomy old factory building, Ibai is industrial in the way that showy city boy spots often are, with polished concrete floors, dramatic and exposed steel air ducts, which – what with the live fire cookery – might not just be for the icy aesthetic.
The immaculate Croque Ibai is flagrant in its commitment to obscenity
Rather than follow the chronological conventions of a restaurant review, we’ll skip straight to the steak. Not because the starters at Ibai are unworthy of discussion and praise – far from it – but because Ibai is so deeply and indelibly a steakhouse, to start anywhere else would be bizarre. There are three kinds available; black angus, Galician blond and full-blood Wagyu. The names of the men who have raised the cows are on the menu, making it a bit like reading a 12” record’s liner notes to find out who mastered the drums. We can only assume then, that Miguel Vergara, Xose Portas and Sam Frost are the Brian Eno, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and David Axelrod of beef farmers.
We choose the Galician blond, and hoot with laughter when our server asks if we’ll be having one each. One between two is still overwhelming, served medium rare as an hilariously large, paleontology-adjacent 1kg t-bone steak, but we tackle it with grace. It’s the rarest medium rare I’ve ever seen, a velvet blush on the inside, and alongside an indulgent Ossau-Iraty cheese-and-black-pepper sauce, mountain of fries and a zingy tomato-and-shallot salad feels like the very apex of a Big Meal Out.
But let's not be blinded by meat. In a coastal fashion, the starters lean towards fish - there’s a carabinero tartate here, and Cantabrian anchovies there, and a toastie take on surf and turf in the immaculate Croque Ibai; a crunchy, hot sarnie of prawns, boudin noir, Tomme de Brebis cheese and honey, which is flagrant in its commitment to obscenity. Also committing a near arrestable offence is a dangerously addictive leaning tower of Noir de Bigorre ham and crisps, crowned with gently smoked piparra peppers. If I ran a cinema I would do away with popcorn and replace it with this triumph of a snack.
Ibai knows exactly what it’s doing – if you take your meat seriously (and have the cash to spare), you’ll be booking a table now.
The vibe Top-tier city slicker steakhouse.
The food Basque-style grilling with an impressive selection of hearty starters. Don’t like meat? Don’t come.
The drink Potent whiskey leaning cocktails and a hefty wine list that comes stacked with full-bodied reds.
Time Out tip Ibai isn’t cheap, but there’s a 250g sirloin steak frites lunchtime-only option for £30. A deal.