Classy Bigg Market bar does proper French cooking.
Like a growing number of places in Newcastle, Hibou Blanc is a bar with a restaurant attached. You never know which is the real business driver. Or more importantly, which the owners care the most about.
And an impressive bar it is too. It’s got that old-school glamour that not many places really nail. It’s a listed building on the Bigg Market that has seen a load of subpar restaurants come and go. But I guess, isn’t the Bigg Market regeneration central these days? Between The WC, Meat:Stack, etc. it seems to be doing well, though I believe a Wendys is coming…
Hibou Blanc — French for ‘white owl’ — is owned by the guys behind Uno’s of all places. Those eager will already be well aware of The Grey Owl at the top of Grey St. which offers similar vibes. But is squarely a bar. Does it foreshadow the Black Owl next?
Hibou Blanc’s main bar is an open-plan, 1920s-inspired celebration of dark wood panelling, art-deco, and big chandeliers, all very Great Gatsby. It gets away with it. A lot of places offer try-hard over-designs made for a chintzy TikTok crowd, but it feels legit in here. Crisp tablecloths, hush-hush lighting, waistcoated serving staff, decent wines. It makes for pleasant grown-up vibes, a world away from neighbouring Popworld and Filthys. That said, the cocktail hour is even better here. Come before 7ish and you’ll find a little escape from the city, and a pornstar martini for £6. Usually properly made as well. But does the food stack up?
The menu sits somewhere between classically French and British comfort food — think artichoke salad, onion tart, petit pots à la Française, chateaubriand. And usually, a welcome abundance of seafood. The marketing proclaims ‘a focus on British seafood’ and rightly so, you’ll see Dover sole, an oyster happy hour, halibut and enough treasures of the sea to walk the walk.
We’ve been for the last two Newcastle Restaurant Weeks (so, few of the dishes here are ‘to a cost’) and it’s ticked nearly all of my boxes. The similar prix fixe menu is 3c for about £30, which is actually as much as you’ll pay anywhere these days. French bistro-esque, which for me is always a winner.
From the RW menu, the sausage roll. Unfair to badge it in the same league as Greggs when it’s this good. Super light for pork, venison and black pud, with a sticky brown sauce on the side, very typically of the type of starter you’ll see. Kate’s chowder was sufficiently smoke-tinged from mackerel and rich with cream even before a dunk from a little cheese toastie. Smart.
Soupe de poissons is usually a good ‘is this place full of shit or not’ dish and this came properly garnished with golden rouille, baguette, and a melting cheese. It’s just a good reflection of what the kitchen is doing here. Due care to dishes you’ll know, and the confidence not to fanny on with them too much is the name of the game.
Even better than this was a recent French Onion soup. It was one of the best in memory, an exemplary version of the dish that is far too often the antithesis of what it should be. Properly adorned in a lion’s head soup bowl, burnished puff pastry sealed lid, tons of cheesy croutons sopping up a concentrated rich onion stock with little pops of herbs and just… really great.
In a similar vein — soufflé has the toughest competition from the market-leading 21 staple, but is likely the second-best you’ll find in the city. That is not daming with faint praise given how good the best-in-class is.
Steaks are dry-aged (hooray), this ribeye was as beefy as it was easy to cut through with not a scrap of unrendered fat through it. Chips are truffled (naturally) and are worth an order as a substantial side. You can get a few bits (scotch eggs, etc.) to the bar if you’re really soaking up some champers.
Meats and fish are always handled carefully, and there’s a welcome balance of cheap-but-tasty cuts (featherblade with Bourguignonne sauce) alongside flash-as-you-like ingredients like the champagne and caviar sauce dressing the halibut. It’s that rarity these days of feeling like you’re in safe hands, whatever is on the menu. Mash is smoked for a little zhuzh up, fries are salty and crisp, sourdough is baked here. Salads are dressed, lightly! We’re all good.
These fishcakes were just about on the wet and mushy side of where I wanted them to be, but swam in a lovely wam tartare bath.
If I was picking holes, pastry lets the side down — pallid caramel in a crepes suzette, slight underbaking of some pastry cases. It’s stretching, but it’s ended the meal on a slightly bum note a few times given how good everything else has been. Then outside of those happy hours, the drinks aren’t wildly exciting either — I’m keen to see everywhere offer natural wines, craft beers, but instead the wine list is mostly French; fine if not titivating. Each time we’ve been though, service has been incredibly enthusiastic which goes a long way to fixing some minor missteps.
It all leaves you keen to get back sometime soon for a sole mueiniere treat (£50 on the current menu 🥲), or just a whopping steak (I swear to god if I read one more forum post about ‘steakhouses in Newcastle’ ending up at Miller & Carter…). Come for a drink, but stay for the kitchen. Hibou Blanc delivers on a higher-than-most standard of cooking in the city, with fairly reliable cooking and dishes that at the end of the day, you’ll want to eat again and again. We certainly have, and will continue to do so.
Contact: hiboublanc.co.uk
Address: Hibou Blanc, 13 High Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1UW
What I’d order again: French onion soup, slow-cooked beef dishes, soufflé, steaks
See also: Afternoon Tea at Hibou Blanc
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