Tubal

Atxen Jiménez is an exceptional person. Framed by her natural inteligence, her capacity for work, her infectious enthusiasm… charming as very few people, and scarcely any professionals, are. It is incredible that her restaurant is always packed and that it merits such acclaim. The pluses include many elements, from the wisdom of possibilistically renewing the locally-inspired cuisine, to the restaurant’s décor, as elegant and warm as its owner, to the prices—reasonable for the quality and quantity of food offered. And above all, immense satisfaction, abundant human pleasure.
There are always a few new items on the menu, products of the season or an effort to excite the spirit of the clientele, that must be ordered in the interest of variety and an appreciation for resourcefulness. However, one cannot leave out the recipes that have helped place this restaurant among the top few on the gastronomic list. Those that make a repeat order inevitable grow progressively greater, becoming grandiose at a second, tenth and fiftieth tasting—proving that glory comes with standing the test of time. And this is an endless string of offerings, accumulated year after year, over many calendars; it includes the baby white beans, borage crepes and clams over green sauce; the potato and foie gras millefeuilles; the egg in fried potato crust with peppers and garlic toast; the lamb chilindrón (stew); and the lamb menudicos or patorillo, a visceral mixture of feet, intestines, sweetbreads, tripe, brains… an indescribable orgy of vittles.
Nicolás Ramírez, who has his mother’s hand, and from whom he has inherited many human and gastronomic values, re-dresses origins and succulence in modernity. In addition to reaffirming the wonderful, he made us take out our tongues to lick the plate and ourselves with the vegetable tempura and calamari served as a welcoming dish; the cardoon with clams and clam sauce; the warm trumpet chanterelle salad with fried artichokes and langoustines; with the fried artichokes with lamb brains knuckle, the scallops with borage and cardoon strips over a bed of green vegetable juices, the warm octopus salad with pig feet and the partridge cannelloni with idiazabal and truffle cream, among other dishes.