It was our favourite restaurant on the planet.
The Altxunea Erretegia was on narrow main street in the village of Ituren in the Basque region of Spain. We chanced upon it during a holiday some eight years ago, scoring a walk-in table and eating a lunch that was delightfully inventive and reasonably priced. We also discovered Getaria wine, a fresh, lightly-sparkling genre made from the vineyards along the Basque Atlantic coast.
We returned to the restaurant time and again over the next seven years. The cooking was often delightfully inventive, variations on Basque themes of meat and fish that we enjoyed sampling. Its standout offer was its open grill where the food was cooked before us. One year we had turbot, others we gorged on ribs of lamb and beef. The bills normally came in around 100 Euros.
In that time we became good friends of the proprietors, Edorta and Amaia. It started when we told them how much we enjoyed our meal and they seemed unduly appreciative. We began greeting and parting with hugs and we always said we would be back the following year. These conversations were held with my fractured and imperfect Spanish – irregular verbs were my greatest weakness – but we always managed to communicate, not only the words but a strengthening underlying affection.
Last year, 2023, we said we were not sure whether we could come back. We are both in our eighties, we told them, and Leni was increasingly troubled with mobility problems and pain stemming from two back conditions, scoliosis and stenosis.
Nonsense, they said you must come next year. We promised that we would and promptly made our return bookings with Brittany Ferries and put a deposit on the rented house we were fond of in the mountains above the nearby village of Zubieta.
Back in August 2024, a month before we were due to leave, I thought I should try to book the restaurant for Sunday lunch – always the busiest time in Spain. To my dismay, I saw the words “Cerrado” next its website. Yes, closed. After a frantic Google search, I found the word permanente – permanently. I also discovered that it had closed down sometime the previous winter, but could unearth no further explanation.
We were distraught, to the point where we considered cancelling our holiday. Wiser counsels prevailed, and instead we searched for new restaurants to try, although we did have several alternative favourites to turn to. When we arrived in Navarra in mid-September, taking the three-hour drive from the Brittany terminal in Santander. As we drove through Ituren we grieved at seeing the shuttered restaurant.
The next day we headed for our second-favourite restaurant. That was the Donamaria ‘ko Benta, which we had discovered the previous year. It occupies a converted Basque farmhouse in a crossroads hamlet some 25 minutes drive from Zubieta, and is run by two sisters: Haizea, the head chef, and Lorea, the front of house. They opened it all of 30 years ago and have won a Michelin recommendation for good value cooking. That day we ate their fabulous light croquettes, calamares en su tinta and a cod – bacalao – dish. Afterwards we sat in their garden and listened to the stream rippling past. The bill was around 80 Euros, a extraordinary bargain
A day or so later we undertook the 75-minute drive to Getaria, a fishing village between Bilbao and Santander. It is famous, first, for being the birthplace of Sebastian Elcano, the sea captain who completed the first circumnavigation of the earth in 1519-1522, taking charge after the previous leader, Ferdinand Magellan after he died in a battle in the Philippines. Its second claim to fame is the fish restaurant Elkano which rates high in the foodie rankings and charges prices to match, as do other nearby restaurants of lesser renown.
We headed instead to an utterly unpretentious restaurant beside the local port, known as Itxas-Etxe – something like “Ocean House” in English. We were there the year before, delighting in its fresh catch fish simply grilled. This year it had a three-course menu which included the choice of turbot, all for 37 Euros per head. We pounced on it before the turbot could disappear and delighted in one of the finest fish it is possible to eat or buy, simply cooked in butter and garlic. Later, we saw that the fancier restuarants had priced their turbot at up to 70 Euros a portion. The ancillary courses were simple but tasty and our 37 Euros included white wine. As we left we saw the chefs taking a breather outside and they seemed pleased when we told them – in my fractured Spanish – how well we had eat.
So we had known both those restaurants from before. A day or so later, we made a new discovery. One of our favourite places is Lizarrieta, the name of the low-level pass into France at the western end of the Pyrenees. We had been there several times and I had usually made a two-hour round trip to climb a nearby 500metre peak, while Leni sat reading below. This time I felt the climb was beyond me and we turned to one of the two restaurants: one sits a few metres into France, the other a similar distance inside Spain. We had eaten at the French restaurant before but this time the menu did not appeal to us. We ventured into the Spanish one to discover a treat. It offered a menu of sausages, cold meat, eggs, cheese and bread plus wine for 13 Euros. When we tried to order one each, the proprietress said one was enough for two, and so it proved. It was a feast! As she was French, we asked what she was doing on the Spanish side of the border. She said counted as an international zone so she could work on either side. She and her husband, who was running the bar, took over the restaurant seven years ago. Before we left we bought some more of her delicious farm cheese which proved to be from Spain.
For a Sunday lunch we ventured to Elizondo, a town on the Baztan river, with ancient houses crowding the riverfront. Our meal at a traditional Basque family restaurant was decent without being exceptional, and as we returned to Zubieta we passed through Ituren once more. To our surprise, the door of the restaurant was open. We parked and I ventured inside to find it full of diners and with Edorta serving a table. He spotted me and embraced me, then came out in search of Leni. He greeted her with a kiss and we returned to the restaurant to meet Oumayma, who was equally affectionate. They invited us to join the meal but alas we had already eaten. We did indulge in a dessert and they explained that they had partly retired and were now mostly providing meals for special occasions – this was a birthday. I reminded them how they had encouraged us to come back this year and they were embarrassed, but of course we forgave them.
Two days later we returned for a simple meal with them and their family – they have two teenage children - and with a local friend, Susa, who spoke excellent English. That gave us a new freedom to talk and we began by asking why they were no longer running the restaurant full time. They explained that after 30 years they felt that was time enough, although they were still catering for special occasions. We learned that Amaia's family had occupied the same house for 200 years or more and her mother had often catered for the villagers. Then Amaia asked about us, our family, what we enjoyed, and said that at last they were finding out more about us. We also learned about their children: they were adopted, from Hungary, and they had gone there to adopt them. Thew saw them a children’s home, brother and sister, who said they wanted to go with them after one day. But Edorta and Amaia had to wait six weeks before being given approval.
We felt privileged to be talking to them on a personal level: normally tourists see only the surface of the places they visit. We talked politics, religion, food, wine, so that we learned about them and their community, and they found out about us. We met again before we departed, when they hosted us for a farewell dinner at a cheerful restaurant attached to the local spa at the next community eastward, Elgorriaga. They asked if we would go back next year and we said we hoped to: although much depended on how mobile Leni proved to be. But as an expression of faith we booked both our ferries and our beautiful rented house within days of reaching home. Esperamos.
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