Literally across the street from the Bay of Biscay, Le Socowa is the  French version of a beach front fish shack. With that in mind, you would expect that organization would not be a strong point, which it is not:  they almost never answer the phone if you call for a reservation and as far as I can tell, they don’t have a website.  Similarly, the service is a bit casual:  the waiters are clearly stretched to cover all the tables on the terrace when the sun is out, chatty and easy-going when the clouds scare away the tourist hoards. But where Le Socowa punches above its weight is in serving very fresh, very simply prepared seafood sourced that day from the fishing boats docked at the port of Ciboure, 5 minutes away.

Consider the meal we had there this spring.  With aperos, crisy croquettes a la morue, moist salt cod barely held together with béchamel sauce, then breaded and deep fried. To accompany a bottle of rosé from the Basque countries, a number of small plates including very fresh sardines grilled on the plancha with only a squeeze of lemon, slow simmered octopus with plenty of Spanish smoked paprika, and anchovy filets, house cured with white wine vinegar and olive oil.  For the main course, a “parillada de mer”, a seafood mixed grill including head on pink prawns, merluchon (the arch-typical white fish of the bay of Biscay, a relative of cod that I think corresponds to “hake” in English) and chiperons (tiny squids cooked whole), all served with saffron rice pilaf and broiled tomatoes. To finish, a plate of Basque sheep’s milk cheese.  All impeccably fresh and very very simple.

Le Socowa is the sort of simple, honest, regional restaurant it is a pleasure to run across when discovering a new city.

Le Socowa
Address: 45 Av. du Commandant Passicot, 64500 Ciboure, France
Tel:  (011 33) 05 24 33 37 05
Reservations: accepted but not really necessary outside the season…in July and August, why are you in a beach town anyway?

Still time to try this daily special which we will be offering this evening:

Seafood terrine of bay scallops, prawns and white fish, served with spicy sauce rémoulade and a salad of frisée lettuce, fennel, capers with cornichon vinaigrette

Just added to the Le Pichet menu by chef de cuisine Vince Hall:

Calamari, Penn Cove clams and mussels seared with parsley, garlic, jambon de Bayonne, piment d’Espelette and olive oil, with duck fat fingerling potatoes and a lemon wedge.

Fresh seafood simply seared on a plancha then tossed with persillade – a mixture of parsley and garlic ground with fat from jambon de Bayonne, olive oil, basque chili powder and a squeeze of lemon – is one of the trademark dishes of the French Basque Countries. Chef Vince adds local fingerling potatoes simmered in duck fat to round out a tasty winter dish.

Café Presse Chef de Cuisine James O’Hern has rolled out his Winter 2020 menu full of dishes that will warm you up on a cold winter day. Here as some photos to whet your appetite. You can check out our full menu here.

If you are feeling the draw of fall food, Chef de Cuisine Vince Hall has just added a trio of dishes to the menu at Le Pichet that will fit the bill perfectly. Enjoy!

After many hours of travel, finally the arrival in Orthez. For a simple lunch, crevette rose from Saint-Jean-de-Luz and freshly made mayonnaise. Deep sign!

Our Quarterly Chef’s Dinner took place at Cafe Presse last evening and frankly it was a blast. The theme for February’s dinner was  “Celebrate Sparkles” and  it offered a great opportunity both to try some of the lesser-known sparking wine of the French countryside and to also see how well these wines pair with food (all year long, but they seem to really lend themselves to a winter menu!).

Here are some photos of the dishes we served at last night’s event – Enjoy!

 Menu

Les amuse bouches
Mimolette and bacon gougères warm from the oven
Black cod tartare, pink grapefruit, chervil, shallots on house-made buckwheat baguette

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Potage aux légumes d’hiver et son consommé aux crevettes
Shellfish consommé with leeks, spinach and celery root, smoked prawns and Brittany sea-salt butter

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Salmis de canard au Cremant rosé de Loire
Muscovy duck simmered with rosé Cremant de Loire, roasted turnips and greens, brown bread trencher spread with duck liver mousse

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Tomme de Laqueuille au bleu, biscottis salées au thym et noisettes torréfiées
Cow’s milk bleu cheese from Auvergne served with savory biscotti scented with thyme and toasted hazelnuts

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Financier au citron et son sabayon au Cremant
Lemon financier cake served with Meyer lemon-Cremant sorbet and Cremant sabayon

For reservations, please call Café Presse at 206.709.7674

Terrine de sardines et de betteraves et sa crème fraiche à l’aneth
Sardine-roasted beet terrine, served with lemon-dill crème fraiche and grilled country bread

Salade de boulgour aux herbes et à la roquette,crevettes confites à l’huile
Olive oil poached wild Gulf shrimp served on a salad of bulger, soft herbs, arugula, red onions, and marinated sweet peppers

Escalope de porc panée à l’alsacienne, salade aux radis et aux herbes
Pork loin escalope, egg and flour dipped then pan fried, Alsatian-style Yukon Gold potato salad, grilled lemon, radish-herb salad

Getting ready for tomorrow’s Quarterly Chef’s Dinner at Café Presse includes preparing periwinnkes.  Know as bigorneaux in France, small sea snails are poached then picked straight from the shell using a pin and dunked in mayonnaise.  Accompanied by a glass of pastis, preferable facing the Mediterranean.  Ah, another time perhaps.

These beauties were beach gathered (they are a nuisance species to the mussel and oyster industries, so we can feel good about eating as many as we can!) so we took the extra step of soaking over night in sea water to get all the sand out.  Next they are poached in salted water with parsley, bay and black pepper.

If you would like to give them a try, there are still a few places left for tomorrow’s dinner.  Give us a call at 206.709.7674

Quarterly Chef’s Dinner at Café Presse featuring the food of Normandy
Tuesday March 20, 2018, 6:30pm.