Sagardi

Is Sagardi worth booking for Basque steak in London?

Yes, if grilled beef and Basque simplicity are what you are after. Sagardi on Curtain Road is one of London's most committed expressions of asador cooking, and after years of operation in Shoreditch it has earned that position through consistency rather than novelty. The txuleton — a thick bone-in cut from older cattle, dry-aged and cooked over a wood fire — is the reason to come here. If that sounds like your kind of meal, book it. If you want tasting menus or high-concept cooking, look elsewhere.

What Sagardi actually is

The room feels like Shoreditch filtered through the Basque Country: wooden tables, open flames, and the deep, settled smell of grilled meat that reaches you before the menu does. The energy is communal rather than hushed. Expect a convivial noise level that makes conversation easy without raising your voice, this is not the place for a business dinner requiring silence, but it works well for a table of two or four who want to eat well and talk through the meal. Under Iñaki López de Viñaspre and the kitchen team, the atmosphere has the confidence of a restaurant that knows exactly what it is doing and sees no need to overcomplicate it.

The open grill is visible from the room, which keeps the cooking transparent. What you see is what the restaurant is: fire, quality beef, and restraint. There is no kitchen theatrics here for their own sake. The act of cooking is part of the setting, not a performance constructed around it.

When to visit and what changes by season

Basque asador cooking is rooted in ingredients that shift through the year, and Sagardi reflects that. The txuleton holds the menu together year-round, but the surrounding dishes respond to what is available. Autumn and winter are the natural home of this style of cooking, fire, aged beef, and hearty accompaniments fit the season in a way that feels less obvious when London is in the middle of a warm July. If you are visiting specifically for the full asador experience with complementary seasonal plates, the colder months give you the most coherent meal. Spring visits are still worthwhile for the beef alone, but the broader menu is less at its peak. Check what is running alongside the grill when you book, since the supporting dishes matter more than they might appear to at first glance.

This is also worth bearing in mind for group bookings. A winter dinner here, built around shared plates from the seasonal menu alongside the txuleton, is a genuinely strong option for a group that wants something more characterful than a standard London steakhouse without committing to a full tasting menu format.

How it fits the wider London picture

Sagardi is not competing directly with London's fine dining tier. It sits in a different register from CORE by Clare Smyth, The Ledbury, or Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Its competition is the broader category of serious steakhouses and Spanish restaurants in the city. In that context it is worth picking because it does something specific, Basque fire cooking grounded in product and tradition, that the majority of London restaurants in the Spanish or grill category do not. For the full London picture, see our full London restaurants guide. If you are building a broader trip, our London hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide are worth reviewing alongside it.

If you are travelling further in the UK and want to compare cooking with a similar grounding in product and place, L'Enclume in Cartmel and Moor Hall in Aughton represent the other end of the British fine dining spectrum. For something more in Sagardi's spirit, confident, tradition-led, without pretension, Hand and Flowers in Marlow is a useful reference point, though the cooking styles are very different. Internationally, if you have eaten at Lazy Bear in San Francisco and enjoyed fire-forward communal cooking, Sagardi will feel like familiar territory even though it is operating in a completely different tradition.

Practical details

Address: Cordy House, 95 Curtain Rd, London EC2A 3BS. Reservations: Booking is rated easy, walk-ins are more feasible here than at most comparable London venues, though weekend evenings fill up. Book a few days ahead for a Saturday dinner to be safe; mid-week is generally accessible. Group size: The communal format suits groups of four to six particularly well. Larger parties should contact the restaurant directly to discuss options. Dress: No formal dress code, smart casual is the natural register for the room. Budget: Price range data is not confirmed in our records; expect mid-to-upper range for a beef-forward dinner in East London, with the txuleton as the primary cost driver. Getting there: Curtain Road is a short walk from Old Street or Shoreditch High Street stations.

Explore more

Browse all Pearl-reviewed London restaurants, or explore further afield with our guides to Waterside Inn in Bray, Gidleigh Park in Chagford, and hide and fox in Saltwood. For international comparison, Le Bernardin in New York City represents the kind of category-defining precision that Sagardi pursues in its own way, product-first, tradition-grounded, and resistant to trend.