It is inevitable that, when talking about Basque grilled fish, our heads go behind sea bream or turbot, two of the banners of the Euskadi seafood grill. However, the sea gives much more and the nets do not forgive when they collect what falls into them.
Nor is it just about choosing hake, cod and bonitosanother three flags with which the Gipuzkoan coast acts as a magnet foodie. But also to give voice to fish, recipes and recovery of certain parts of the animals themselves that fall into no man’s land.
This is what chef Andoni Txintxilla does in Hamarratz, a fish grill on the promontories of the fishing village of Zumaia (about 35 kilometers east of Donosti via the AP-8, very close to Zarauz and Orio), a first-rate port for the province of Guipúzcoa, who dedicates his efforts not only to making protagonists out of the big cards, but also to creating with them.
Marine sausages, collaboration with the Mutriku Aquaculture School and names of fish that may not sound familiar to the general public, but that have the power and flavor to be protagonists on the menu and tasting menu, are the banners raised by Txintxilla.
Mugle, plaice, dentex or sandeel thus add to the margins left to include sea bream or turbot (because the chef from Zumaiarra does not close his doors or fall into the apostolate), although places special emphasis on fish that the hospitality industry left aside when he dressed as a gala, but that they kept coming into the houses.
The ‘weekly’ season at sea
A task that requires a certain amount of didactics, as Txintxilla warns, but that surprises with gastronomic examples that, saving certain distances, we could call Mile 0, selling fish from Basque markets such as Bermeo, Ondarroa or Lekeitio.
On several occasions, given the comparison that can be established with this idea, Txintxilla stresses that “I am not seeking to emulate Ángel León nor have I copied what he does”, although he was working in the three Michelin star Aponiente, directed by León. Something that is clear when you see the list of fish that she, she warns her, “They occur in the Cantabrian but obviously they are not there every day“.
Andoni emphasizes it with “the sea commands and is the one that puts everything in the auctions and markets. That’s why you can’t always have everything at once”. A humble and daily restaurant in Zumaia itself, it has taken off since 2021 with Hamarratz, a restaurant whose leitmotif of marine use is similar to what Fishology is done in Barcelona.
Dignify aquaculture
In fact, for non-Basque speakers, Hamarratz can also leave the question of its meaning hanging in the air. “It is the Basque word for crab, and we are a bit ‘crabs’ in the sense that, to go forward, it seems that we are going backwards“, endorses Txintxilla, who does not close culinary doors neither to the land nor to the orchards.
“We also work meat and even game, but we want everything to come from as close as possible. In addition, we are working with a wild herbs project, which is led by the botanist Clara Gutierrezand that allows mixing in a seafood cuisine that also has an inland meaning.
Towards this proximity and speaking a language of use and sustainability, Txintxilla also breaks a necessary spear for ecological awareness: farmed fish. “We are immersed in several projects to give more quality to this type of fish because they are the future and make them as good as the wild ones”, he explains.
The best recipes of Direct to the palate (Cooking)
The same speech that, perched on San Miguel de Artadi, that promontory full of holm oaks that surprises in the heights of Zumaia, is also imbued with a passion for Basque wine. That idyll puts it on the table and drink Anne Agirre, sommelier and head waiterwhich gives txakoli (the great Basque wine) the culinary prominence it deserves, even though it is already a wine that has been climbing the charts in many parts of the rest of the peninsula for years.
Images | Hamarratz
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