Zarate restaurant in Bilbao, the sea on every plate

In Spain, they say that when the sea is calm, ‘it’s like a plate’. Something similar happens at the Zarate restaurant in Bilbao: you can find the sea on every plate. And everything that is produced by Sergio Ortiz de Zarate’s hands is absolute glory

A Michelin Star and two Repsol Suns support the voyage of this sailor of stews.

His recently launched tasting menus include a full range of dishes with references to the sea, from start to finish. There is a short menu, with 9 steps, which is served only from Tuesday to Friday at noon, as it is a more dynamic service; a 13-step menu to which they always add a chef’s extra; and a 17-step menu that includes four dishes: caviar on omelette, spicy prawns, hake in salt with leeks and garlic soup with prawns and mushrooms.

Zarate’s new dishes are a masterful blend of sea and mountain ingredients where the flavour is delicate and ingenious.

Among its offerings, it still preserves its now legendary creation of confit peppers, veal snouts and cod tripe with roasted onion juice.

The secret to everything working, as well as tidal wave-proof expertise, is that the arrantzales (fishermen) usually contact the chef directly from the boat to offer him the catch of the day, as in Lekeitio they don’t have to go to the fish market.

Sergio Ortiz de Zarate or the kitchen of the sea

Bilbao-born chef Sergio Ortiz de Zarate is in love with the sea and Basque cuisine.

After opening his first restaurant in Lekeitio, in 2011 he moved to the heart of Bilbao and opened the “Zarate” restaurant, which won its first Michelin Star in 2016.

He considers himself to be “crazy about the sea” and you only have to know his approach to understand the infinite possible combinations with seaweed, caviar and plenty of fish and seafood, such as sea bass, anchovy, spider crab, sardines, monkfish, cod and kokotxas.