Steak sandwich @ La Bistroteca, Baltic Market
Baltic Market, Batic Triangle, Liverpool, L8 5RE
I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of the Baltic Market experience. The music is earsplitting and – if you come at the wrong time – it’s absolutely heaving with hen and stag parties. It’s someone’s idea of a good time; but not mine.
All that said, there’s some very decent food on offer here — one of the best pad thai in Liverpool from Spice Thai and fantastic, stretchy Neapolitan pizzas from Little Furnace, to name a couple of examples.
And when I heard former Maray and Queens Wine Bar & Bistro head chef, Liv Alarcon, had opened her first solo kitchen there last year, I knew I’d have to suck it up and brave the vibe.
La Bistroteca has a short menu of what you might call brasserie junk food – including dishes like crispy popcorn mussels, fiery pil-pil prawns and fries loaded with confit duck.
All excellent, but the best stuff – in my view – is the beef. The french dip sandwich, slathered with sweet caramelised onions and served ‘au jus’ with a pot of deep, dark gravy is fantastic. The fried ragu bites are even better: gobstopper-size, crispy-coated, set on a bed of creamy bechamel and packed with dark, slow-cooked ragu — like lasagne Ferrero Rocher.
But best of all is the steak sandwich. Slices of perfectly cooked, pink bavette dressed with chimichurri and laid on top of a red onion-heavy salad. The bread, soft but with enough structural integrity to hold the filling, is spread with mustard mayo.
Difficult to not inhale in just a couple of minutes and absolutely worth putting up with the sights and sounds of Baltic Market for.
