In Bilbao, It’s Not Just the Museum
BETWEEN its Norman Foster subway system, Santiago Calatravabridge and, of course, Frank Gehry’s magnificent Guggenheim Museum, washed like a titanium-clad shipwreck on the once gritty shores of the Nervión river, Bilbao has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last 15 years.
Six miles from Bilbao, Azurmendi is deceptively bucolic. Just as you’re being lulled into complacency by the vistas from the dining room’s windows, the chef Eneko Atxa, who trained with Martin Berasategui, delivers a jolt: a “reverse egg,” a yolk whose interior has been replaced with black truffle.
In lesser hands, this highly theatrical fare would be easy to mock. But Mr. Atxa puts spectacle largely at the service of flavor. A row of charred beet “soil” comes dotted with tiny seasonal vegetables to form one of his signature dishes, the Garden. The “seawater” that the restaurant serves with its single oyster (poured over dry ice, so that the aroma, as well as smoke, enrobes the table), is distilled from algae using a contraption that Mr. Atxa and his in-house scientist have devised. “We tried to use real seawater,” Mr. Atxa said, “but by the time we got it back to the kitchen, it had lost flavor.”
For those who tremble at the sight of liquid nitrogen, Azurmendi offers a handful of traditional Basque dishes, including a luxuriously overstuffed bowl of kokotxas, the tiny hake jowls that are a Basque delicacy. But it would be a shame to miss out on Mr. Atxa’s unbridled creativity, especially when it comes to dessert. For fall, Moss is a swipe of tart apple sauce topped with a Granny Smith-and-arugula foam, then served on a piece of slate that, appropriately, rests on the table vertically.
Azurmendi, Corredor del Txorierri, Larrabetzu; (34-944) 558-866; www.azurmendi.biz; tasting menus 55 and 80 euros.
Mina has exactly the kind of qualities you hope to discover while traveling: modest location, unexpectedly fine food and mostly unnoticed by the food-blogging masses. The Spanish press has only recently begun to pay attention to it, although the restaurant opened four years ago. “We never advertised,” said the chef Alvaro Garrido, who runs Mina with his wife, Lara Martín. “We wanted to give ourselves time to mature.”
A wise move. In fact, Mr. Garrido and Ms. Martín, who is also a chef but has lately been running the front of the house, seem the soul of judiciousness. Mina offers only two tasting menus, both based on what is available in the market — Bilbao’s largest — across the river from the restaurant. On the plate, those fresh ingredients are transformed into dishes that surprise not with dazzle but with their equilibrium. Shrimp tartare gets sweetness from sherry-infused chunks of melon, and both tartness and texture from a sauce that sets tapioca pearls adrift in pools of green apple gelée. A “risotto,” which contains not a grain of rice, is made from the large Basque squid called begi haundi whose meaty flesh is balanced with the creaminess of butter and a hit of wasabi.
Mr. Garrido and Ms. Martín met while they were working for Paco Torreblanca, Spain’s premier pastry chef, and their desserts are especially good. A brown sugar sabayon capped with mandarin sorbet is delicious enough to make you forget you’ve already eaten six courses. “We change the menu every day,” Mr. Martín said. “But that’s one dish that people won’t let us remove.”
Mina, Muelle Marzana; (34-944) 795-938; restaurantemina.es; tasting menus 50 and 65 euros.
When A Fuego Negro opened in San Sebastián several years ago, the city was so ready for a modern pintxos (tapas) bar that the place became an overnight sensation. Bascook, which opened this summer, seeks to fill roughly the same niche in Bilbao. Admittedly, it’s a sit-down restaurant with no bite-sized snacks on display, but it is a fun place to split a few dishes with friends.
Bascook’s chef, Aitor Elizegi, has transformed an old salt cellar into a cozy den of a restaurant, with a menu unlike any other. It comes as part of a newspaper the restaurant publishes, and its offerings are arranged in three seemingly random categories: vegetarian, global and “Kilometer 1,” for locally inspired dishes. With the exception of the soups, including a nutty cornbread purée, almost everything is meant for sharing.
There are some well-made straightforward dishes, like fresh cockles, grilled to smoky sweetness. But the most triumphant gently incorporate avant-garde techniques. Voluptuous swirls of crisp-fried calamari are served, improbably yet deliciously, with Parmesan “noodles” made from agar-agar. Aioli pulls the dish together, and freeze-dried “crumbs” of squid ink add nice crunch. Likewise, a gin-and-tonic is here turned into a delightful dessert in the form of cubes of jelly candy. As Mr. Elizegi writes in the menu-newspaper, “We want to leave room for surprises.”
Bascook, Barroeta Aldamar, 8; (34-944) 009-977. Dinner for two around 50 euros.
Fuente: The New York Times
