Ibai — Restaurant in London

Definitely a "go to" at the moment so wanted to check it out. Unfortunately fell quite condiderably short in the service aspect. We arrived at 7:45pm 4/5 people, and ordered a round of drinks for 5 people. This took over 20 minutes, and our final friend had arrived at that point. We didn't really mind, so spoke to our server and prompted him that he had forgotten the 5th drink. This then took another 15 minutes and they also got the drink order wrong. This was a bit annoying at this point as this is clearly a premium restaurant, having featured in the FT and the Guardian. He then took our food order. We then spoke with the sommelier who was pleasant and knowledgeable about his craft. He quickly brought out our wine and decanted it. The wine was good and fair value. The starters came out after about 30 minutes, they were fine. Then another hour passed and they brought out our next course which was the King Crab Rice. We spoke to the waitor and said could he bring out our steak at the same time, since it had been almost 2 hours since we originally ordered. He said they didn't like to serve fish and steak on the same plates, but he said he would bring us some new plates so we can have both at the same time. Another hour passed and they had still not brought out our steaks. At this point it was quite ridiculous, it was now 1045pm and we hadn't got our main course for a 745pm booking. Eventually the steak came out. We were on to our third bottle of wine at this point. Just to pass the time. We began eating our steaks, and at about 1130 the restaurant staff were hovering around very keen to take our plates away, they only have a licence until midnight but due to the chronic delays it was almost that time. They ended up taking our mains away at this point even though we still had some food left. We didn't even challenge this, as had become accustomed to the very poor service at this stage. The manager then came over, as our server had escalated our grievances to him. He was quite an aggressive character, acknowledging the service may have been bad. He insisted "yes but how was the food". The food was good in fairness, but wasn't exceptional, certainly comparable to Goodmans and Hawksmoor. He ultimately gave us the round of drinks, the order that they had got wrong initially, on the house. Which was certainly a nice gesture. But there's limited one can actually do in that situation to change our view of the place. We ordered dessert and once again the plates were taken before we had finished and then we were told we had to leave because of their licence. Also worth noting, the restaurant was at most 70% full, so it didn't seem like a...

I visited for dinner with a friend on a Thursday evening. The place was packed. We were seated in an interesting location, at 1 of 3 small tables placed alongside the open kitchen. We did get some pretty good views of the kitchen from our table but were fully isolated from the main restaurant floor.

Ibai is known for its Galician Blond steaks, and we went for the T-Bone variant of this, along with a bunch of sides and starters including the chickpea panisse, scallops, tolosa beans, fries and tomatoes. We also tried the pain perdu and chocolate pudding for dessert. The food was really good and I was impressed with their consistency as each item was very well prepared, even something as simple as a side of tomatoes. As for the headline item, this was probably the best version of an “old cow” I have tried to date - having tried this at places like Lurra as well - but for those less aware it does entail a deeper, gamier flavour of beef, and fat content is often on the higher side as well. For me it’s something to enjoy once in a while but if I was on my death bed a “younger” cow would be my first choice!

While the food was great, service was a let down. We received a very warm welcome and initially things moved along efficiently, but after finishing our starters there was a 1+ hour wait for our steak. And after receiving our steak service became virtually non existent, it seemed our isolated table location had been forgotten about. Sitting alongside the kitchen, it was actually one of the chefs who noticed our troubles and took it upon himself to shout out for serving staff to attend to us on multiple occasions (dessert order, getting the bill, etc.). I also received a call from the GM five days later asking if we had paid our bill! We had of course done so and he was quite apologetic about the whole episode, but it all contributed to my impression of slow and disorganised service.

The (fully paid) bill for our meal came to £430 of which £190 was spent on drinks. Overall a solid steakhouse which could be a contender for one of the top picks in London, but service really does need to sharpen up. Based on other reviews they perhaps had an off night, but at these prices off nights...

We had a lovely dinner at Ibai with some friends this past week. The restaurant is airy and industrial chic with booths as well as tables for guests. Service team is excellent, super knowledgeable talking through the menu and recommending portions and dishes. Sommelier was also quite good – got two direct hits with the bottle recommendations for our meal – lovely wines which hit our diverse palate and decently priced bottles.

The croque Ibai was super impressive in flavour balance and texture – will come back just for this treat. The ham and crisps were also lovely with the texture of the ham particularly a nice compliment to the chips. We had some sweetcorn with truffle which we doubled as a dip for the chips (to avoid the ignominy of licking the plate). Our mains were the Galician Blonde (rib cut) and the octopus. The flavour of the steak was fabulous although the table was split on texture – I loved the rib-eye with its meaty texture and marbled fat throughout whilst my dinner companions preferred a more melt-in-your mouth texture. The steak was remarkably flavourful and cooked textbook perfect – very impressed! The herb salsa was also a great accompanying sauce. The octopus dish was delicious – soft textures along with the rich tomato sauce (which you also dipped your steak in) made this one of our most enjoyable dishes.

Our meal which was elevated by the truly passionate service team who helped us navigate their menus and get the best combination for our table. I will need to pop by for lunch for its steak frites offering!

Parking – there are one or two spots in front but City parking is generally limited so public transport or taxi...