Basque Cuisine Has A Japanese Soul At This Wildly Creative Restaurant

Forbes

6 days ago

Chef Tetsuro Maeda in front of Txispa Mandrágora Fotógrafos
Tetsuro Maeda is a man of eccentric stories. The chef of Txispa will casually mention a trip he made to Hokkaido, when, by the way, he was a top-ranked professional snowboarder in Japan. Driving around Spain's Basque Country near Axpe, he'll point out the route he followed when he spent ten years commuting by horseback to his job at Asador Etxebarri. Even simple conversations often spark to life with an unexpected detail.
Perhaps that's why his restaurant, just up the hill from his former longtime workplace, Etxebarri, is called Txispa—the Basque word for 'spark.' The easiest way to sum up the restaurant is to imagine what Japanese cooking could have looked like 300 years ago, but made in the Basque Country with ingredients that thrive there. But that description sounds more like a thought exercise than an unforgettable meal.
And Txispa is certainly unforgettable. In fact, there's something ineffable about the whole thing, something that can't be explained with a formula. There's a spark, a flicker of magic that's alchemical rather than analytical. As the cover page of the keepsake menu explains, 'Txispa is not just a name; it is the Txispa that transforms.'
The road leading to Txispa Courtesy of the restaurant
It continues with more insight into Maeda's journey. 'My teacher used to say: 'Txispa is missing,' reminding us that every dish needs that essence that elevates it. This is why we cook with passion, at the foot of the majestic mountains, deeply connected to the land where each dish reflects our authentic connection and the beauty in the simple.'
Along with the snowboards and the saddles, that journey to the culinary big leagues followed a similarly unconventional path. In 2011, he bought a ticket to Spain using money he'd earned as a pharmaceutical guinea pig; an acquaintance in Japan had told him about an internship opportunity at the Michelin-starred Alameda in Hondarribia. This was the height of San Sebastian's reign as the European city with the most Michelin stars per capita—an era of relentless invention, experimentation and cerebral modernist cuisine.
Maeda loved the artistry but found himself transported on a day off, when he went for lunch in Axpe. Chef Bittor Arginzoniz's legendary Etxebarri is the antithesis of all that—a fire kitchen where the grill is the centerpiece and the ingredients are pristine, where the ideas are simple and elemental, where the experience is almost primal: protein meets flame. Our lizard brains awaken. Maeda's certainly did.
Aged and seared golden-eye snapper with perfectly crisp skin and lettuce Courtesy of the restaurant
He learned enough Spanish to hit up Arginzoniz for a volunteer position, waited a year for it to come through, and then spent a decade at Etxebarri, where he lived in a former shepherds' shelter and rode that borrowed horse to work, even as he gained recognition as the grill master's most skilled apprentice and eventually became second in command. 'Etxebarri was the grill, nothing more,' he remembers. 'I loved it.'
Now he's traded his horse for a Tesla, built a proper home for his family, and taken center stage in a restaurant of his own—one where he could be fully Japanese, not just trying to be Basque. It's the grill and a little more. Txispa opened in 2023 about 500 yards up the hill from Etxebarri in a gorgeous old stone caserío, or rural house with land for vegetable gardens. Maeda was drawn in particular to this one, which dates from the 18th century, because of the two mature cherry trees on the grounds. (Their fruits show up in the desserts.)
Along with renovating the house into a seven-table, open-plan dining room with the kitchen—and especially its fancy Josper Basque grills—on display in one corner, he also worked with an agronomic engineer to recover about 2.5 acres of vegetable gardens, where he's planted shiso and mizuna alongside the Basque peppers and potatoes.
Txispa occupies an 18th-century stone farmhouse Courtesy of the resturant
That shiso is a detail that reflects Maeda's distinctive vision. The chef is proudly Japanese, something that shines through from start to finish, even as he's taking his place in a much larger, global fire dining movement.
'Fusion cuisine' sometimes gets a bad rap—gimmicks like biryani pizza, or al pastor sushi rolls deserve it—but Txispa is a blending of gastronomic cultures. It's not just one traditional, recognizable thing. It's a Japanese chef cooking Japanese cuisine with Basque ingredients, and all with the perspective of a 21st-century restaurateur but the constraints of a very different era—one with no DHL or FedEx.
It's fair to say it's elemental Basque cuisine refracted through a Japanese lens. Or to describe it as Japanese food made in the Basque Country. A recent group of international diners called it Spanish kaiseki, a description Maeda quite liked. And whatever it is, it's very good, earning Txispa a Michelin star and a spot on the World's 50 Best extended list less than two years after opening.
Basque sushi with fermented red peppers and rice crackers Courtesy of the restaurant
Lunch—and the restaurant is open only for lunch, as Maeda considers the view of the stunning Axpe valley an essential part of the experience—begins, as so much fine dining does these days, in the kitchen. In late spring, the first bites were from a small wooden box of garden-fresh teardrop pea pods, which diners opened with their hands and ate straight from their shells—an appreciation of seasonal purity that felt rigorously Japanese.
From there, he presents what may be his most emblematic dish, a sliver of lightly seared tuna tataki with fermented tomato water, red pepper and onion, all on top of a thin rice cracker. The fermented vegetables bring the acid taste that would normally come from the vinegar in sushi rice, while the preparation is also part of the traditional Basque dish marmitako (tuna stew). He calls it Euskal sushi, using the native-language word for the region.
The rest of the menu unfolds in about ten reasonable courses, all served to every table at once, with Maeda standing in the center of the dining room and explaining what's going on. After a while, guests are invited back into the kitchen to watch the main event: Maeda team raising, lowering and tilting the racks above the coals on the grill, carefully executing a choreography between the proteins of the Galician beef and the flames that transform it.
Maeda at the grill Courtesy of the restaurant
Along the way, the dishes appear to have a strong Japanese DNA: Prawns are presented with nukasuke (pickles). Eel is served kabayaki- style (butterflied and grilled in a sweet soy-sauce-based glaze). A dollop of caviar rests atop creamy tofu in a tiny hexagonal pot. Corn and beef tongue are paired with koji (a fermented product that's often based on soybeans). Many of the ceramics are imported from the chef's native Kanazawa.
And here's where it gets interesting. Soybeans don't grow in the Basque Country. And while Maeda doesn't follow any kilometer zero dogma and allows himself to import some of the best of the best, like the unadorned, ember-cooked scarlet prawns from the Mediterranean, he's decided not to take the easy way out on the Japanese ingredients. (Remember his guiding image of a Japanese cook being plunked down in 18th-century Spain.)
The team makes their versions of tofu, miso, soy sauce and other Japanese staples using chickpeas, various beans and other native crops. It's labor-intensive, but it's part of what provides the spark. 'The fresh things have to be fresh. Bringing in soy sauce doesn't make sense,' he says, emphasizing again the importance of Txispa's emotional terroir. 'A big theme is the happiness I have about living here.' MORE FROM FORBES Forbes This Maverick British Chef Is Rewriting The Rules Of Fine Dining By Ann Abel Forbes This Wildly Creative Restaurant Turns Campfire Cooking Into Fine Dining By Ann Abel Forbes How One Of Munich's Top Chefs Is Using Gastronomy As Cultural Diplomacy By Ann Abel