Our Basque itinerary was packed with fragrant fire-grilled fish 🐟 and meat 🥩, but we saved one meal for something “pretty.”

👨‍🍳 Azurmendi Jatetxea is helmed by Eneko Atxa, once the youngest chef in Spain to earn three Michelin stars. The restaurant sits in the hills about twenty minutes outside Bilbao.
It’s been named World’s Most Sustainable Restaurant twice, and has topped Elite Traveler’s world rankings before.

🤔 The setting, service, and plating all live up to its green star. But when it comes to the food itself, presentation outran flavor — the seasoning was heavy-handed enough to bury the ingredients, like a kindergartner with a lot to say but no sense of order.

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Before the meal even begins, there’s a run of about twelve bites — animal-themed dishes served from a garden basket, seafood plated on the kitchen counter, plant dishes brought out in the greenhouse — all before you’re even seated in the main dining room. A flood of flavors hits in twenty short minutes; “interesting” and “pretty” fit better than “delicious.”
I liked the foie gras draped in lemongrass paste and the white shrimp under cauliflower, but the heavy bean broth, the plain sweet-potato ice cream, and the rose that was nicer to look at than to eat — those I can respect without understanding.

Later courses had their moments: a mushroom soup styled as “Mushroom Guinness,” playing an interesting game between how it looks and how it tastes.
🦪 The oyster-and-seaweed pairing was, unexpectedly, a perfect match for the milky steamed-bun-shaped bread.
🫑 A roasted bell pepper shaped like a rose held onto a lot of open-flame char while still letting the vegetable’s own sweetness through — paired beautifully with the corn bread on the side.

For a thirty-course three-star dinner, that’s about where “delicious” runs out — you could count the highlights on one hand. Setting aside how oversalted some dishes were, maybe you’d get a second hand’s worth of memorable moments.

The next day we went to the pintxos bars the chef recommended, which got us thinking about the difference between the two. Pintxos look thrown-together but taste wonderful. Azurmendi’s dishes look beautiful but taste careless.

The Basque Country has no shortage of great restaurants, big and small — this one’s pretty to look at, less pretty to eat, so we’re setting it aside. The rest is up to you 🫡

🍴 Azurmendi Jatetxea
💰 €315++