1.) First four bites - The Picnic Basket of Caviar Roll, Lemongrass Custard, Bilbainito Brioche and Marianito
The picnic basket is the famous way Azurmendi greets you in, serving you four delicious little bites (or sips, in the case of the last one). All are just great - the favorite being for me the little brioche, though they didn't really explain what a Bilbaonito was. Of course, a caviar filled roll is damn good too.
2.) Tomato Pulp - Corte Helado
The next section is you get a series of bites in the kitchen, with this time all featuring tomato in different ways, which of course terrified me. The first was a little ice cream cracker type thing, which was just awesome. Yes, the tomato taste was fairly pure, but was still reasonably not just a raw tomato. Thank God Azurmendi avoided taht as a dish. The cracker had more of an apple flavor which was great.
3.) Tomato Skin - Bloody Mendi
The best part was actually the pickled piece of celery on top, which as I told the cook was the best celery I have ever had, so tart and brilliant. The actually play on a bloody mary was nice and refreshing as well.
4.) Tomato Flesh - Talo
This was tremendous - in many ways, I actually like burnt tomato like this - the crisp was just brilliant (I'm as much a fan of Talo as I am Taco). The little details on this bite were just awesome, including honey, a little bit of roe and those little flowers.
5.) Tomato Serum - Flor de Agua
Last bit of tomato - finally (I kid, this section was generally quite tasty and not scary as I imagined when they brought me to the table with all types of Basque tomatoes splayed out). The last bit was this gelatinous flower made out of tomato water. if anything, this had the most tomato flavor, but also a nice anise flavor and was quite perfectly jiggly.
6.) Apple Tree & Leaf Broth
The last bit of pre-table is in teh greenhouse, which is now more stylized than an actual hot greenhouse (as it was in 2021), but the concept is the same where they walk you around the room and things that appear initially to just be flowers or something are dishes. The first this time was a lovely appre tree & leaf broth - a more mellow, tart version of apple cider.
7.) Sweet Potato Ice Cream
The best little dollop of sweet potato. My favorite part is they left the tartness a bit of the sweet potato in there - it wasn't too sweet, just a little bit of magical gooeyness. The cone, made from sweet potato, was also perfectly crisp.
8.) Asparagus Bun
While this looks like the little Bilbaonito from before, this was a brioche made from asparagus flour (whatever that is) and the middle being creamed asparagus. It tasted like a perfectly boiled, roasted white asparagus.
9.) Anastasia Nectar Bomb
The last bit was this little iced bolinho with passionfruit inside. Not the msot complex, but a nice palatte cleanser if you wish.
10.) Txipiron Pelayo
The menu was seafood heavy, as is what it in season, including another series of four fairly small bites of perfectly cooked seafood. First was a tartare of squid and a burnt squid sauce underneath. The two complemented each other perfectly.
11.) Bilbao Style Sardines
I feel like I am saying this for most of them, but this was another bite of perfection - but then again Azurmendi is a three-star Michelin restaurant, priced as such. The sardines themselves with that dollop of whatever on the sides were so perfectly, lightly cooked - a great mix of spice and freshness.
12.) Clams
Lest you think I am going to overly praise every Azurmendi dish, this one was jsut OK. Again the clam itself and broth were excellent, but there wasn't too much more to it. Would've loved a bit more weirdness here, but to some degree Azurmendi mixes 50/50 restrained well cooked simplicity and creative brilliance.
13.) Nori & Roe
It's amazing how after I learned at EMi how prevalent seaweed is in Spain, it just started appearing everywhere. This, much like the prior clams dish, wasn't the most mind-blowing from a ceative point of view, but the roe itself was unctious and exploding and brilliant.
14.) Blue Fish Tart with Pickled Pipparas
The blue fish was great, really well seasoned and fresh, but the real star is the glass of the most deep, strong, smoky bit of pickled fish broth, pickeld with the pipparas pepper local to the basque region - a truly special broth. Weirdly, with this and EMi - the broths are sometimes the real stars of the show.
15.) Oyster and Seaweed Granita
Ok - this was magical. Three large, salty, seawatery oysters underneath this granita of seaweed, with other seaweed pieces mixed in. Some of the weirdest flavor combinations with the added mix of temperatures. It was a strange dish, but somehow it all worked.
16.) Shrimp, Herbal Notes & Shrimp Emulsion
There was a similar dish last time, mainly because these little incredibly buttery, fatty, perfect little shrimps native to the basque region are one of the best things you will ever eat. The blue dots are sauces made from the shrimp heads. This is just one of the star bites - which makes it so reasonable why Azurmendi has kept something like this on the menu forever basically.
17.) Spider Crab, Sea Crisps and Manzanilla
Manzanilla is a sherry, which is what the foam is made of, with the added bits of lavender combining to a brilliant topping of a weirdly brillaitn soft/crunchy mix of snow crab and fried bits of seaweed (again!) underneath. Another just incredible mix of textures and flavors.
18.) Chargrilled Pepper in Txistorra Paste
No lie - this had my single favorite component of anything I ate during my time at Azurmendi, which was the sauce, which was based on the Txistorra (little thin sausages). The pepper itself was lovely if simple, but Jesus that deep, brilliant sauce. I know describing it as a sausage in a sauce may seem weird, but my God did it work.
19.) Lobster with Pulses and Weed Butter
Not sure what weed butter (its the foam in teh dish) was, but it was great. The lobster itself was maybe the best cooked lobster I have ever had. The pulse sauce underneath was great as well, but let's get back to that lobster. It may be cliche for that to be the main seafood course but when you can absolutely cook it to that level of perfection, why not play the hits.
20.) Pork Castaneta with Murcilla, Pork Belly and Duxelle
Well, on the plus side it isn't just a brilliantly cooked piece of beef. On the even more plus side, this was one of the more creative main dishes I have ever had. The middle is the pork castaneta, which is the salivary gland, this really interesting texture and deep pig flavor. The side elements, from the two bits of blood sausage, to those paper thin pieces of pork belly, to the duxelle sauce at the bottom was all just so awesome. A great, if truly unexpected, way to end the meal.
21.) Honey & A Thousand Flowers with Custard
Looked more interesting than it tasted, mainly because it looked like heaven. The ice cream of honey was great, as was the custard. A simple, elegant palate cleanser.
22.) Pistachio Six Ways
As the waiter said to me when serving it, "I hope you like pistachio." I do, and this was brilliant for the last actual course - six different preparations of pistachio, from crumble to ganache to gels to gelatos, to the underlying sauce. They were all excellent, deeply pistachio-ish, and just one of the best desserts I have ever had.
23.) Petit Fours
Sadly, these were all brilliantly tasty, if a bit unmemorable - in the sense they could've been the petit fours at so many tasting menus I have been too. Again, all of them were excellent and crafted well and great ways to end the meal, but you do wish they could've been more interesting, at least matching the largely brilliance that came before it.
