Bilbao Berria

Wow, one year later I have finally come back here to try out the restaurant downstairs! No wonder other people were raving about it, because service is definitely better than upstairs (it might have been something to do with it being a Tuesday night and only 4 tables occupied downstairs).
Admittedly our waitress seemed quite new and uncertain at her job, but at no point did she offend and dishes were cleared away always with our permission. Without further ado, let’s continue with the food!
Homemade Bread with dip selection (£5) — the bread was round in shape and cute, tasted ok but not those super soft and fresh ones you get at French restaurants. The tomatoes are seriously just tomatoes sliced in half. Olive oil was nothing special. Ohhh but the Ai-​i-​Oli (looked like white garlic cream) was ammmmazing. I could eat this sauce all day.
Jamon Iberico Bellota (£18) — Lovely ham with just enough fat on it. I don’t really like the breadsticks they serve with it, but for dipping into the Ai-​i-​Oli it was heaven!
Seafood Paella (£20) — the portion is for one and it comes served in the pan it was fried in. Seems like a lot of rice gets wasted as it was stuck and burnt to the bottom of the pan. There was one prawn, two mussels and some clams. Average and for the 30 minute wait I think you can get better elsewhere.
Pigeon with barley risotto of asparagus and almonds (£16) — strangely enough I don’t recall any almonds, but this adventurous dish proves interesting. It came with one wing and one leg and the breast. Two asparagus only. And barley risotto was very al dente. Sorry, don’t recall any almonds at all in this dish?! The breast was tender indeed but the leg that I had was so tiny you could equate this as having no taste at all. It’s a good dish but I wouldn’t order it again here. For this price I could have 2 pigeons in Hong Kong!
Chocolate Couland with dulce de leche ice cream (£7)
This was delicious but very sweet, although I wouldn’t come here just for desserts. I have had better desserts (i.e. sticks n sushi desserts!!!)
Red wine sangria (£7?) — ohhhh so alcoholic, tasted ok, but there were only oranges inside and no other fruits. It isn’t as sweet as the other ones I’ve tried.
The surroundings are quite nice, two tables are surrounded by a bird cage style cage. The toilets are quite pretty with a powder room as well. This is a nice place to relax in quiet surroundings.

I had my first experience with Bilbao Berria while visiting a friend in Barcelona. He mentioned we should try Pintxos while we were there, so we stopped in at Bilbao Berria and feasted on the selection of Pintxos. While we were there, we noticed that they had a branch in London, so we knew we’d have to try it sometime after we returned. We had matinée tickets to see a play on a Saturday, so I made a booking here for Saturday night after the show was over.
So it’s very different than the one in Barcelona. First, that place does a lot of Pintxos with a few extra options to order (including Padron Peppers that we ordered). But mostly there we had Pintxos. At this venue, the bar is massive. With a ton of seating available around. And the number of Pintxos were quite small in comparison. I was hoping to see something similar with a ton of people and a ton of Pintxos, but neither the food nor the people seemed to be as popular as it is in Spain. Later on, the server mentioned that when they first opened they had the entire bar full of them, but they just weren’t that popular and most of them were thrown out (or eaten by the staff), so they had to cut down on the amount quite a bit. Actually, we didn’t have any of the food in the bar, as the Pintxos are reserved mostly for the bar area, and the restaurant has a more extensive, tapas-​like menu. We did sit in the bar and have a pitcher of Cava Sangria. And it was nice and refreshing on such a hot day, but there’s something about drinking it in Spain that just didn’t match to having it in such a modern looking bar in London.
The seating for the restaurant is downstairs. They have a pretty good wine menu, with ranging prices, and we did have a couple of reds to drink with our food (both of them were really delicious). We opted to order everything to share, so we ordered Padron Peppers (because it’s literally one of the best things about Spanish food), some Jamon Iberico, some Manchego Cheese, bread, patatas bravas, mussels, confit pork belly and braised beef cheek (because clearly we’re gluttons).
It came out in two waves: First, the peppers, ham, bread and cheese followed later by the other four dishes. Turns out they brought us the wrong ham, but they offered to bring us the one we ordered or to charge us the cheaper amount for the ham they brought us. We got more ham. They were both really nice, but we went to a place in Malaga and the ham there as spoiled us for Iberico ham. But it was still nice. The manchego was delicious and nicely aged. And the padron peppers were amazing and we ordered a second batch. Because they are so amazing. (In case you didn’t get that.)
At this point, I figured we were on a solid four-​star rating. Everything was good, but the peppers were the star. That’s until the rest of the food came out. The mussels were delicious. They were cooked in some sort of broth that had a lot of paprika and cloves in it, and possibly garlic. I don’t know, but we ate all the mussels, dipped the rest of our bread in the broth and then finished it with a spoon. They were probably some of the best mussels I’ve ever had. (And we get mussels quite a bit.) The patatas bravas were better than any we had in Spain. A rich, paprika-​y sauce and cooked perfectly. They were spectacular. The pork belly was really tasty, but mostly fat. But the beef cheeks were tender and succulent and served with an amazingly sweet sauce and parsnips. Wow. I was impressed. And apparently the menu is all created by the chef. Who turns out to be a Professional Masterchef winner.
We had a bit of dessert as well. We really wanted the herbal after dinner liqueur, but they were out. So we went with something else instead (that was similar to a grappa and quite strong). I ordered the basque tart and my partner ordered the lemon dessert. They were both really well done (even if the ganache in my tart had split) and they were both really tasty.
I can seriously recommend this place to anyone who likes Spanish food. Everything we had was good or delicious; not a bad course was had. I definitely want to come back for some of the Pintxos sometime as well as some of the other courses on the menu that we didn’t order (croquettes and asparagus). It wasn’t really busy when we were there on a Saturday night, and it made me slightly worried that the place may not be around for long. Hopefully I’m reading too much into it. The prices are more on the spendy side of things as far as Tapas go, but it is definitely worth it!

We were looking for a new place to eat during our trip to London every day, and this place caught our eye. The front of the shop was eye-​catching.
Once we entered, we were escorted to the restaurant level, which is in the basement. The floors are polished and stained concrete, and it has kind of a dark look. As you enter, you can see the wine storage on the wall — row upon row of wine bottles, lighted from below, as well as the sculpture on the ceiling.
We sat at a table next to the wine bottle, and started ordering. This is a tapas restaurant, which means small plates, so we ordered an olive plate, a plate of Cecina, and a plate of Pan con aceite, which were pretty darn tasty.
I tried their cheese plate, but found it to be too sharp for my palate — I had to eat the cheese with a lot of bread and crackers.
Overall, the service was solid. The place was a little on the loud side, with a large party really driving the volume. It can’t be helped, but the architecture didn’t help — hard floors and ceilings, with little diffussion will cause such issues.
With that said, it was a good meal, and we had a good time.

I was meeting a girlfriend for lunch and we were planning to meet at Pret. Pret was way too crowded due to it being lunch time and I looked next door and saw Bilbao Berria had tables. I’ve seen this restaurant many times and was happy to finally try it.
Food: For lunch they have pintos at the bar you can take and keep the sticks in a holder at your table along with ordering tapas from their menu. We ordered the following tapas: croquetas, tomato salad, patatas bravas, pimientos and the chorizo. Everything was delicious and had a lot of flavour.
Drinks: We ordered two soft drinks.
Price: 32.06 GBP for two people which was reasonable.
Ambiance: The space is done really nicely and feels welcoming.
Service: The service was friendly, but not perfect. Our waiter forgot a couple of things, but luckily caught them in time to where we weren’t late in getting back to work.
Would I go back? Yes. I would go back because the food was good and there’s not a lot of nice places in that neighbourhood.

I lived in Spain for over three years and owned a bar (for Spaniards) there, I went with a Basque friend that grew up in Cataluña, so we both understand what a classy Spanish restaurant is and what is a pastiche. This feels like an upmarket Madrilenean Basque themed place and everyone who works here is Spanish, so this is the real deal.
So, it’s in a great West End location and no expense has been spared on the interior, which looks like a mahogany and oak boxed songbird cage. Just go see it you’ll get the idea. It’s a restaurant on two floors, the ground floor sells a good range of great pinxtos which follow the help yourself and they count the cocktail sticks at the end pricing model and a few tapas. Their calamares romana are ordinary, not ordinary for an English pub ordinary, which would be awful, but ordinary for a restaurant in mainland Spain which means OK but not special. The tortilla is actually excellent, not just good but worth coming here for on its own excellent. Nothing else raises the bar with the possible exception of the Estrella Galicia 1906, which is the only Spanish lager I’ve ever had that I would describe as really good, more like a Stiegl than any other Spanish beer I’ve had. The service is very Spanish, in that it’s friendly but they will only remember ²⁄₃ of your orders. So that’s the upstairs bar.
The restaurant downstairs is much the same but without the pinxtos and an expanded menu that is mostly tapas type foods on very small plates at very untapaslike prices. I had the secreto iberico which was served as one lump rather than little slices and it was actually rather good. it came with sauté potatoes on a plate the size of a rectangular saucer. More of a starter than a main course really. My friend had the filet of lubina (sea bass) which was fine but again quite small. Think of the dining downstairs as more of a tapas XL experience. If you don’t snack upstairs first you will need to order several times.
The deserts are standard Soanish, with the exception of the chocolate mousse which is actually good.
Service downstairs is better, we were served by an excellent waiter who having lived in both countries, speaks Spanish as his mother tongue and English like Bob Hoskins.
The wine list is truly extensive, but only wanting a glass, I ended up with the Ribera Del Duero recommended by Bob, it was fine with the meal and cut the fat of the secreto iberico quite perfectly. A top tip with secreto iberico is never to look at it in a butchers or supermarket, it’s singularly the most unattractive cut if pork a light pink meat made of fine strings of meat and fat interwoven with more fat than meat. When cooked the fat renders completely leaving the most succulent morsels of tasty pig you have ever imagined.
I really wanted a pacharan to finish off the meal, I haven’t had one since leaving Spain 8 years ago and having seen it on the menu I was quite looking forward to it. They’d run out, which was a bit of a letdown really.
So, in summary, this is a really good place, an ideal first date restaurant as there’s so much atmosphere and food to talk about. It has just opened so you can still get a table and it’s upmarket West End. So I’m torn I want to give it 4 stars but a piece of me is thinking 3. So I’ll go benefit of the doubt and eat here again and really, I think you should too.