Located across from the fronton (the traditional court for playing pelota, present in nearly every Basque town or village), this humble little restaurant has continued to over perform through visits spanning many years.  At lunch, there is a daily chef’s menu with 2 choices each for entree, plat and dessert, is a steal at 26 euros. On a recent visit, the starters were a delicious leeks vinaigrette, the vinaigrette more like an herby sauce gribiche with chunks of hard cooked eggs, and an escabèche of aubergines, thick slices of eggplant first fried, then left to come to room temperature in a slightly sweet combination of vinegar, olive oil and diced tomatoes, finished with a crumble of feta cheese. For plat, I had a lovely trout filet, perfectly cooked and served with braised lettuces and a rich shellfish broth, Sheila had paleron of beef, slow cooked, shredded and served liquor redolent of red wine,  with chickpeas and courgettes. For dessert, on offer was either local sheep’s milk cheese or a panna cotta scented with fig leaves, served with red cherries macerated with basque sour cherry liqueur.

Evenings, the ambiance is much more bar than resto, with a menu composed of raciones, or small plates.  We especially enjoyed a plate of green beans dressed with a tahini vinaigrette, a perfect tortilla espagnol and a very generous bocadillo stuffed with grilled chicken and caramelized onions. On Thursdays, the bar features pintxos, with your choice  from the bar display offered free with each glass purchased. This weekly special is a promotion arranged by the city of Ciboure and is available in most of the nearby bars.  Ambiance assurée!

For wine, Maitenia features an impressive list, especially deep in  Basque wines from both sides of the Pyrenees and leaning heavily toward organic, natural or  biodynamic.  This is no surprise, as the same team owns an excellent cave a vin across from the Halles of St-Jean-de-Luz called Canon.

Maitenia
Address:  8 Pl. du Fronton, 64500 Ciboure
Tel:  (011 33) 05 24 33 45 68
Reservations: advised, especially for lunch in the summer.  Not available for evenings.

What a pleasure to find a restaurant so utterly concentrated on making simply-delicious food from the freshest possible, ultra-local ingredients and trusting that it will be beautiful, without any flourishes!  In this age of tweezer-food, micro-flowers, sauce dots and Instagram-able plates, it’s like dining in a monastery! And here, the monks dine very well!

Located near the Halles of St-Jean-de-Luz, Pluviôse is tiny, with just 12 seats.  The room is comfortable but nondescript, somewhere between a cozy cafe and a food and wine storeroom, with crates and cases stacked in every available corner.  The chef, an Australian who relocated to the Pays-Basque more than 10 years ago, is also the waiter, the sommelier, the dishwasher, literally every job in the house.  So don’t expect the fancy bells and whistles that are often found in restaurants that set the culinary bar this high.

The food here is really the point, and it is excellent.  Everything is house-made, including the bread, butter, house cheese, vinegar and more.  All ingredients are sourced hyper-locally, (the seafood and fish comes from a fisherman whose boat is 200 m from the restaurant). The bread is baked just before service so that it arrives with your first course still steaming from the oven (and is some of the best bread I have had in the region).  A yogurt ice cream, part of the dessert, was churned at the last minute and never went in a freezer.

Our 7-course lunch included a number of dishes that don’t sound unusual but surprised with their simplicity of presentation and explosive flavors: Butternut squash, grilled and served with house-made fresh cheese and pumpkin seed-parsley-garlic vinaigrette; tortilla espagnol, the classic egg and potato pie, here with onion bits that had been roasted in the wood oven until crispy and  aromatic; sashimi of grondin gris (an underappreciated fish that, served raw, was toothy, saline and wonderful) with daikon radish and piment d’Espelette oil;  grilled collar of the same fish with olive oil, sea salt and house vinegar; leeks cooked “en papillote” very slowly on the wood grill, topped with diced Meyer lemon (and perhaps my favorite dish of the entire meal);  merlu cooked on the braise with sauce  pil-pil and a salad of cabbage and sunflower seeds (merlu, a flaky white fish, is THE fish of the Basque countries, often cooked “pil-pil”, in which the gelatinous fish juices are emulsified with garlic and olive oil);  yogurt ice-cream, with local yuzu confiture.  Wow!

The thing is, every dish was excellent.  The service was informal but well timed.  It would be difficult to find fault with any element of our meal.

The wine list is chock full of natural and organic wines at very generous prices. A bottle of winemaker Thierry Puzelat’s excellent Clos de Tue-Boeuf “Le Brin de Chèvre”, a natural white from the Touraine region, was only 45 euros.  And the 2nd bottle we took for home was only 25!

Pluviôse
Address:  3, Rue du 17 Pluviôse, 64500 Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Tel:  (011 33) 06 67 41 78 07
Reservations: very strongly advised as the restaurant only has 12 seats. No website, reservations by phone.

Brandade de morue was one of the all-time favorite dishes at Le Pichet and Cafe Presse. Whenever it was not on the menu, guests would be asking when it was coming back.  Our local fish shop, Poissonerie Otano, always has beautiful salt cod on offer, either as fillets or “miettes” which  means small odds and ends that are cheaper, and usually used for purees and fillings.  I have been itching to buy some and taste it for quality.  Salt cod has been a specialty of the Basque countries for time out of mind;  the Basques will tell you that they were fishing and salting cod in Newfoundland before the arrival of Columbus!
Since brandade  is warm and comforting on a grey day and a bit heavy for hot days, it seemed like a good time to make a batch before the temperatures begin to rise. With toasted bread and a green salad (and a bottle of rosé, of course), it makes a hearty lunch all by itself. By the way, the quality of the salt cod from Otano is excellent, firm and delicious, not too salty.

Special this weekend at Café Presse: Axoa d’Espelette!
Basque-style stew of ground beef and veal simmered with onions, sweet peppers, garlic, tomato and piment d’Espelette, served with pommes frites. Mmmmm!

Now on the cheese board at Café Presse, this goat’s milk tomme from the French Basque region is perfectly ripe and ready to sample. The Basques are famous for their sheep milk cheeses, but a small amount of goat’s milk cheese is also made. These large tommes, which weight about 9#, take their name from the word “cabri” = “kid” or “young goat”. Aged for about 8 months, with a natural rind, the taste is slightly sweet/salty with flavors of hazelnuts and caramel. Miam Miam

In April 2019, I had the opportunity to visit the Fromagerie Ecologique Agour Irati located high up foothills of the Basque Pyrenees. A quick word about Agour (I also noticed it spelled Agur, which I believe is in Euskera, the Basque language? You Euskera speakers, correct me if I am wrong). If you are a fan of French cheeses, and especially of Basque sheep milk cheeses, you have likely heard of Agour. They are the largest family run independent cheese maker in the French Basque countries and have been exporting to the U.S. for over 20 years. We have featured their lovely cheeses on the cheeses boards at Le Pichet and Cafe Presse for as long as they have been open.

Their principle fromagerie is in the town of Helette, near Espelette, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. There they make the traditional Basque sheep milk tomme know as Ossau Iraty and age it for up to 2 years. However, in recent years, the family began to fear the loss of the traditional methods of Basque cheese making as large international dairy companies moved into the region and sought buy out small producers. These corporations built giant cheese making facilities, purchased as much local milk as possible and standardized the methods of sheep raising on the farms from which they purchased. This meant that sheep began to spend little or no time in the rich mountain pastures of the Basque valleys and instead produced milk while living in barns and eating standardized feed.

While Agour continued to ask their farmers to work in the traditional way, they especially feared for the loss of the transhumance, the traditional practice of taking the sheep high into the mountains each summer where they can spend the day munching the lush carpet of grasses, herbs and flowers that grow there. The milk of sheep who feed in the mountain pastures is much richer, fattier and more flavorful than that of barn-fed sheep raised on fodder. And of course, this superior milk yields superior cheese.

It was a desire to save this tradition that led Agour to open their second (and much smaller) fromagerie high in the hills of Irati. As the fromagerie is much closer to the mountain pastures and to the little mountain cabins where the migrating shepherds daily milk their flock, Agour is now able to pass from from cabin to cabin in the hills, collecting the milk from many flocks each day…each night actually, as the best time to collect the milk is before dawn to insure absolute freshness. The milk is then taken to the fromagerie and made into cheese the same day.

So why Fromagerie Écologique? Concerned for the ecology of the valley (fresh air = better milk), Agour decided to build a fromagerie that was not only cutting edge in terms of hygiene (to comply with very strict French hygiene laws for raw milk cheeses) but that also included cutting edge energy technology that would make the facility carbon neutral. To this end, the fromagerie power is produced by modern low carbon wood fired generators that burn wood chips from trees and brush culled from the nearby forest of Irati in order to limit the possibility of forest fires. The small amount of carbon produced is offset each year through an aggressive tree planting program inaugurated by Agour.

Here are some photos from our visit.

Located on a quiet street fronting the estuary of the Nivelle river, behind the fishing docks in the Basque coastal town of Ciboure, Restaurant Arrantzaleak doesn’t give the impression that it might be one of the best known restaurants in the region.  The decor is modest, with even a bit of seaside schmaltz…the walls are decorated with fishing nets, colorful cork floats, mounted trophy fish, tables are wood topped  and sky blue painted benches standing in for chairs.

However, when we arrived, the table of 15 Chinese tourists near the door left no doubt that this was the place we had read about.

Fortunately, Arrantzaleak, or “Chez Remunctxo” as it is known locally, lives up to the billing.  The formula is simple:  very fresh fish , grilled over hardwood coals (the grill is situated in a alcove that you pass through on your way to the bar), accompanied by fresh seasonal vegetables.  Done.

Although everything we tried was very good, selections from the daily fresh sheet were particularly good:  grilled razor clams served with leeks, fava beans and asparagus; wild caught sea bass with more favas, pickled shallot and garlic butter;  excellent whole prawns with persillade; and little flat fish called “langue d’avocat”, which resembled sand dabs and were served with herbed beurre blanc.

Restaurant Arrantzaleak
Address: 18 Avenue Jean Poulou, Ciboure, 64500
Tel: 05 59 47 10 75
Reservations:  Definitely, during the high season

The Basque fishing port of Ciboure is only minutes from the French border with Spain, on the bay of Biscay.  Because it has no sandy beaches, it has remained an active fishing port and a sleepy neighbor to big sister Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the Belle Époque  beach resort across the harbor.

Each year during January, however,  Ciboure fetes its patron saint, Saint Vincent, or Bixintxo in Euskara, the basque tongue.  Over the course of two weeks, the town is alive with a slew of events and activities:  The mayor of the town offers a aperitif and pintxo reception to all guests and visitors:  The streets are filled with carnival rides, arcade games and food booths;  there are concerts, dances, bals musicals;  traditional basque music and dancing is performed in the streets;  the Mayor of Ciboure offers an aperitif and pintxo hour free for all attendees; there is a communal dinner on the last Sunday of the month.And on the day we were there, Ciboure hosted the World Championship of the Boudin d’Iperralde or Basque blood sausage.  Quite fortunate timing, as we were not aware that any of this was going on until we arrived.

The competition is divided into categories for amateurs and professionals and the judging is taken very seriously.  All entries are examined cold, then grilled to order and tasted again hot.

Finally, after the winners have been selected, and a blessing sung over them in Euskara, the boudins are cut into thick slices, put on pieces of baguette and distributed to the crowd.

Of course, all the proceedings were overseen by a group of traditional basque musicians.

For our part, the blood sausage, with a glass of basque cider (or rosé wine in the case of the happy snacker above), was just an appetizer, before walking up the hill behind the fronton (pelota court) toward one of my favorite restaurants, Chez Mattin, which was actually the reason for our unexpectedly fortuitous visit to Ciboure in the first place.  Fortunately, we had made a reservation, as the restaurant was packed.  Not long after we arrived, the same group of musicians pictured above arrived, with instruments in hand, to occupy two long tables in the back room.

The food was great as always;  a special highlight was a dish of “pibales” or baby eels.  They arrived at our table simply sauteed with garlic, olive oil, parsley and a squeeze of lemon.  The serving we had must have literally contained hundreds of eels, each less than an inch long.  I had a moment of conscience thinking about the toll on the local eel population represented by just those being eaten in this room, but oh well, it is the season.  When in Rome…

Chez Mattin (pronounced “ma chin”) is a Basque bistrot in the fishing port of Ciboure, which lies across harbor from the larger coastal city of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.  With its menu of traditional Basque specialties and its wood beamed dining room, Chez Mattin feels like a portal into a simpler time in dining.  This is good, honest food, emphasizing both “la mer” and “la terre” with a daily chalkboard menu that features equally the products of the green hills of the Payes Basques and the best of the days catch from Ciboure, France’s second most important fishing port.  The quality of the ingredients is irreproachable, the service is friendly (although don’t expect servers to speak English), the wine list full of well priced wines of the region.

Chez Mattin was recommended to me by the owner of the well-known “La Tupina” restaurant in Bordeaux, who lives in Ciboure and commutes to work each day.

Chez Mattin
Address: 63, rue Evariste Baignol  64500 Ciboure
Telephone : 05 59 47 19 52
Reservations:  Indispensable, especially at dinner