Sagardi London, Shoreditch – tried and tasted

This restaurant promises to bring a bit of the Basque Country to London — but is it any good?
Top offer: The steaks are high on the billing at Sagardi
Ben Norum30 September 2016

A new addition to the Shoreditch food scene, Basque restaurant Sagardi will look pretty fresh-faced to most Londoners but this latest outpost is in fact the restaurant group’s 11th branch worldwide.

Don’t necessarily assume that’s a bad thing, though — Sagardi is far from being a cynical global chain. In fact, nine of these other restaurants are in Spain and the only other in Hispanic Buenos Aires. Surely it’s a good sign that the group is well-versed in serving Spanish food to the Spaniards?

That said, it must be noted that the restaurants are split between Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and Valencia rather than any of the cities in the Basque region, from where the food it serves hails.

The menu serves numerous tapas-style small plates — including rather beautiful marinated anchovies, robust-tasting jamón, excellently crisp-out-gooey-in croquettes and impeccably cooked guindilla peppers (a lot like padrón peppers) that are sweet and blistered from the pan — before launching into what it is really all about: the Basque Country steak.

Meat and greet: Mikel Viñaspre, who founded Sagardi with his brother Iñaki

The best of this is Galician, and made from cows — usually ex-dairy — that are older than most bred for their meat ever get to be. The steaks are gutsy affairs, with heavy marbling of fat and phenomenal flavour. At their best, they are easily among the finest in the world.

Sagardi’s version of these steaks does not disappoint. It is juicy, rich and tender with a seductively deep, meaty flavour and plenty of delicious, melting fat. The nature of the cuts mean it is necessary to buy 800g of it at a time, which means a minimum of two must commit to ordering it — and that each of those two must commit to eating a fair amount of it.

At £12 per 100g, it also makes the minimum price for this kind of steak £96. That isn’t so terrible if there’s a group of you to split it, and cheaper not-so-aged cuts are available, but for a restaurant that focuses so strongly on this steak, it feels like it’s missing a trick not to offer smaller portions.

It’s also worth noting that Sagardi isn’t the first place to serve these steaks in London. Both Lurra and Kitty Fisher’s in Marylebone specialise in them, and actually do them slightly better. Those of several others we have tried, Sagardi is the pick of the bunch.

Steaks aside, what Sagardi really has going for it against its meaty rivals is that it offers the complete package. Like many restaurants in Spain it has a large list of G&Ts, you can get rustic-style morcilla cooked with peppers as a starter, there’s Basque cider available, the bar area offers pintxos, and there’s the fun of being offered Spanish wine by the porron. There is nowhere else in London that offers all of that alongside Galician steaks.

No, this Shoreditch site is not a patch on the eateries of San Sebastian or Bilbao, but for now it’s probably the closest you’re going to get without catching a flight.

Sagardi, Shoreditch: The Lowdown

Final flavour: A bit of the Basque Country settles down in Shoreditch.

At what cost? Steaks start at £6 per 10g and go up to £12 per 100g, while other dishes are far more reasonable.

Visit if you like: Lurra, Kitty Fishers, Morada Brindisa.

Find it: 95 Curtain Road, EC2A 3BS; sagardi.com

Follow Ben Norum on Twitter @BenNorum

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