‘A restaurant’s triumphant chest beat’

Ibai in the City of London is a modern, metropolitan, meat-eater’s dream restaurant. It’s a triumphant restaurant, clad in concrete, steel and glass. It’s a big, wide, open space – a corner building standing tall and proud, just off a street called Little Britain. There are curved benches, and every seat in every section is comfortable and enveloping. The service staff wear green/grey aprons and are confident and relaxed, exuding the spirit of ‘Come this way, gentlemen, for there’s saltfish, meat, carbs, wine and fire.’

Who knew London needed a French Basque region, representing the word for river, water and Ibai, the spirit of life? The idea has us scouring the map and wondering about that part of the world: the landscape, the food, the people.