La Oveja Latxa
In a neighborhood as bustling and full of bars and shops as the Old Quarter of San Sebastián, it is hard to highlight a novel business that captures the attention of both tourists and locals alike.the past year, however, an establishment opened its doors that has managed to conquer the hearts (and stomachs) of all those who walk by and look in its shop window. We’re talking about La Oveja Latxa, a shop that specializes in highquality Basque foods. The shop’s products include cheeses, beverages, sweets, dried fruits, canned goods, condiments, cold cuts, and pâtés, as well as kitchenware.
This business’s success cannot be understood without getting to know the person who founded it: Maider Lasa. This entrepreneur one day decided to share her passion for Basque cuisine with the world by opening an online shop that sold food. Her operational base was a remodeled country house located in Aia, the village where she was born, just 30 km from San Sebastián. That cozy space, set up as a gastronomic society, also helped her to meet the special requests made by customers, such as lunches, snacks, and dinner events for couples and groups.
Along with her online sales, Maider started to supply several luxury hotels like Lasala Plaza and Iturregi and to visit fairs throughout the Basque Country, teaching people about the foods that she so carefully selected, some of which can be purchased from nobody else. Many of her products have won awards at prestigious international fairs, like the Agerre-buru cheese, considered in 2018 to be the best semi-cured sheep cheese of Spain, or the foie gras with Espelette pepper which won an award at the Paris International Agricultural Show. Her ability to find unconventional foods has brought her to add delicacies to her shop like Per Sé caviar from Navarre, rosé Urruzola txakoli produced in a fourteenth-century estate in Alkiza, kiwi jam and “Gran Cru de Terroir” dark chocolate produced by Joseba Arguiñano, and tomato and nut with pepper delight produced in the French Basque Country.
The close ties that Maider has with each of her providers is what allowed her to take the great leap from online sales to adding a physical shop. One of her providers, Daniel Dupuy (founder of Agerria, which specializes in foie gras, minuet, pâtés and other duck derivatives), was the one who suggested opening, together, the San Sebastián shop. Dupuy already had three boutiques in the French Basque Country, in addition to an estate in Irouleguy where his laboratory is located. Thanks to his experience in running shops and Maider’s ability to select quality products, the San Sebastián shop which opened last March on Calle Fermín Calbetón has been a resounding success from the very first day – so much so that six months later a second shop was opened with a product sampling area at the nearby Calle Narrika, number 13.
Kitchenware like porcelain cups in a kaiku shape (containers used in the past to prepare curds), food presentation boards that look like surfboards, aprons, and gourmet products of all types can be found daily at the La Oveja Latxa shops, going out of them in the hands of tourists who want to bring a little piece of the Basque Country back home with them – a small souvenir or an unforgettable flavor that makes them remember this beautiful region.