SAVOURING SAN SEBASTIAN
Fine dining in Basque country
Of course, we are happy if the reaction is very good, but we need to listen to the people and admit (it) if we make a mistake. Elena Arzak, on why her three-Michelin-star restaurant solicits guest comments.
Months later, it’s still hard to decide what impressed most about Arzak, the venerable three-Michelin-star restaurant in San Sebastian, that city by the Bay of Biscay in Northern Spain that makes food lovers swoon.
Was it one particular dish that, among a dozen or so courses, bubbled over with flavours and creativity? Sauteed lobster with fresh bee pollen and blue honeycomb? Pigeon breast in an Armagnac sauce, adorned with shavings of cypress wood? A mammoth but deceptively light chocolate truffle made of cacao- and carob-covered cotton candy, which playfully collapsed when chocolate-orange sauce was poured on it?
Or was it the pre-meal guided tour of the restaurant, which included stops in Arzak’s 100,000-bottle wine cellar and the rarefied research laboratory, where leadingedge culinary transformations and combinations were developed with advanced equipment and a floorto-ceiling collection of spices and dried ingredients?
Probably it was the warm, gracious hospitality of Arzak, which flowed from the top down on the night we dined there, as chef Elena Arzak made the rounds in the elegant dining room, ensuring that her guests were captivated.
In 2012, she was named top female chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, but she is not the only culinary great at Arzak. Elena, 47, oversees the elite kitchen’s brigade with her father, Juan Mari Arzak, 73, who for four decades has revitalized Basque cuisine and brought it international acclaim.
That San Sebastian, population 185,000, now has nine restaurants with Michelin stars is a testament to Juan Mari’s influence. That’s not to mention the elevated level of dishes and even bar snacks throughout San Sebastian.
Father, daughter and their restaurant, in turn, stand on the shoulders of two more generations of Arzaks. Opened in 1897 by Juan Mari’s grandfather, Arzak was at first a wine cellar and tavern. It became a choice venue for banquets and celebrations of weddings, baptisms and communions. Later, under Juan Mari, it evolved into a fine-dining destination. In 1974, Arzak received its first Michelin star; in 1989, it received its third, and it has held that coveted designation ever since. On the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, Arzak has climbed as high as eighth, in 2013. From that organization, it also has a lifetime achievement award.
Our visit to Arzak, during which we savoured its lavish tasting menu over an entire evening, was a highlight during our week in San Sebastian, which itself followed a bit more than a week in southwestern France. (San Sebastian is just 20 minutes from the French border.)
Our time in San Sebastian included much playing in the waves at the city’s fantastic beaches, a hike, despite the heat, up Mount Urgull, and strolls in the old town interrupted by many stops for pintxos (delicious bar snacks) and txakoli (Basque sparkling white wine). We also made a day trip to Bilbao, about an hour west, to visit the Guggenheim Museum.
We expected stellar food at Arzak and were not disappointed by the procession of eye-popping creations that Elena Arzak chose for our table after asking us about preferences, allergies and the like.
As novel as they are, the restaurant’s dishes are rooted in season, place and the Basque palate.
“In all the plates, you got, without knowing, chopped parsley,” Elena Arzak told me when I’d returned to Canada and given her a call. “Because the Basque people, we adore parsley. It’s the way we cook.
“We need to cook without losing the roots, but we are open to the world. The world can bring us a lot of ideas.”
Case in point was Arzak’s play on Japanese gyoza dumplings, which substituted crackling for the usual doughy wrapper and filled it with prawns, orange and a bit of poached onion. “Poached onions is very Basque,” Elena said.
One signature Arzak dish, evocatively called “Red Space Egg,” consisted of a perfect, slow-cooked egg covered in a thin layer of red pepper, served with crispy bits of pig’s trotters, fermented grains and multicoloured dots of various sauces.
“When my father was a child, the family came from a farm, and all the eggs were sold, and it was a luxury, eating an egg,” Elena said. “And still for my father, this is in his mind. This is why we always have an egg from the day.”
She has her steadfast food memories, including her first duties at the restaurant, when she was 11.
“One of the things that I did very much was cleaning the squids,” Elena said. “For many years. I was very fast, cleaning squids.”
At Arzak, line-caught squid have come perfumed by steamed pandanus leaves, reflecting Elena’s recent interest in cooking with leaves.
Of a fabulous lobster course, Elena said: “The lobster normally has a bit of a sweet taste. It is a taste that is not very strong. The fresh bee pollen is something fantastic. If you eat the bee pollen alone, it’s bitter. But it you eat it with lobster, it’s not bitter. You need to eat them together. In this plate, there is a little bit of honey and honey with oranges, because honey alone will be too sweet for the plate.
“In all of our plates, we try to find a balance of the tastes,” she said.
“For us, the taste is the most important, even if we make something nice, original, good-looking. It’s true that sometimes you eat through the eyes, no? But don’t forget that the taste is the more important. Everything that we do has to help the taste.”
Other items, for all their sophistication, were also whimsical. An appetizer of Basque sausage with mango and a beer sauce came mounted on a crushed beer can, meant to remind guests of the importance of recycling, Elena said. Slabs of pigeon breast, tender and superbly sauced, were served on tablet computers with screens that showed flames lapping.
“We like to be a little bit playful,” Elena said. “Playful, but in a serious way.”
The willingness to amuse contributed to Arzak’s lack of stuffiness. Yes, it’s a dignified and stylish dining room that seats about 60 people, and dinner there is certainly a splurge (about $290 per person for dinner, before drinks and taxes), but it is more cosy than formal.
For all of Arzak’s accolades, the restaurant is still humble enough to solicit comments, both positive and negative, from its guests.
“We try to go as much as possible to see the feedback of the table. We are open to criticism. The people can help you,” Elena said. “Of course, we are happy if the reaction is very good, but we need to listen to the people and admit (it) if we make a mistake.”
If there were any flaws on the night we dined at Arzak, I didn’t detect them.