Spanish Vacation: Elkano

Day Six Continued...

Lunch today was at the famed Elkano, located in the small fishing village of Getaria. Chef Pedro Arregui opened the restaurant back in 1968. It serves traditional Basque cuisine, specializing in seafood. It uses only the freshest ingredients. Their fish is caught fresh every day. They are known for their grilled fish, cooked outside over charcoal, which you can see below.

As we waited for our multi-course lunch to begin, we sipped some 2004 El Nido Clio, from the Jumilla region of Spain. This is a superb wine that I have previously reviewed. It is a Monastrell blend and has luscious fruit flavors.

Our initial food course was a salad with lettuce, carrot, tomato, white asparagus and tuna. There was a light vinegarette on the salad and everything was very fresh and tasty. A simple but delicious course.

The second course was some cold lobster pieces, with oil, salt and tomato. The lobster was very sweet and the pieces were fairly large chunks of meat.

We then moved onto the first of our hake kokotxas ("gills"). We had kokotxas previously at the Medoc restaurant so were curious how they would compare. These kokotxas were fried in a little egg batter and oil. They were very good, much better than the ones we had at the Medoc. They were not really slimy at all. We were then brought a second plate of kokotxas, though this time they were just grilled. They are intended to be eaten whole, and do have a bit of a gelatinous texture to them. But, it was obvious that the sauce at the Medoc had made them seem far more gelatinous. Simply grilled, they were tasty, though I did prefer the fried ones.

Our next course was then grilled hake, a large piece of flaky white fish. Absolutely delicious! A very simple preparation, allowing the natural sweet taste of the fish to shine. This is why this restaurant is so popular, their fine grilled fish.

Dessert included cheese ice cream and rice with milk, both very good.

Presentation of the various courses was very nice. They definitely paid attention to the look of each dish, as well as its taste. The restaurant itself has a certain elegance to it though it is still a casual restaurant. Service was excellent. I would definitely recommend this restaurant, especially if you love seafood.