The town is a 30 minute scenic scenic drive from Biarritz, and has built its entire tourism around the production of its peppers, which are harvested, hung up to dry outside houses and celebrated in a festival d'Espelette in October. We walked around the town, bought the local produce which comes in the form of dried spice, salt flakes, jam, jelly and every condiment from mustard to olive oil. The signs in Espelette, as in many of the small town around this region are in the Basque language, and you will spot the Basque cross on everything from the linen, to the ubiquitous souvenir merchandise, as well as the green, red and white of the Basque flag.
We rounded off our trip with a real Basque meal at at Euzkadi. Espelette proved to be small and quaint. I can imagine that it draws its fair share of tourists to the region during the high season, with its promise of the piment d'Espelette and celebrations of everything Basque.
 |
| The amuse bouche of butternut soup and espelette spice |
I tried the tripoxta, a form of blood sausage. Not something I will be trying again. The roasted lamb, served up with broad beans was fine. My son kept it fairly simple with the axoa - a Basque meal of chopped chicken breast cooked with peppers. My daughter had a grilled cabillaud which she enjoyed, and the best meal of that lunch was my husband's duck in a balsamic-like reduction served with mashed sweet potato. Dessert was Basque cake, ice cream and a mixed plate of chocolate pot, crème caramel and smaller servings of the Basque cake. We sat out on the terrace at the back of the restaurant and enjoyed the Spring weather and the local wine. Taking with me the memories of this lunch and my bag fulls of the Espelette produce.
 |
| Tripoxta |
 |
| Axoa served with sautéed potatoes |
55 Karrika Nagusia
64250 Espelette.
No comments:
Post a Comment