Restaurant Le Brouillarta (Saint-Jean-de-Luz, FRANCE) ★★★★☆

Our brief 36-hour stay in Southwestern France is finally drawing to a close. After spending a relaxing morning in charming Biarritz, we have just one more place to go before crossing the border into Spain - Saint Jean de Luz.



Saint Jean de Luz is a small fishing town that sits on a gentle, crescent-shaped bay offering its residents and visitors a number of fine sand beaches. It also has a highly underrated old town that is filled with colorful timbered Basque houses. I would love to spend more time here but again, time was our biggest enemy.



One of the reasons we were here in Saint Jean de Luz was Michelin starred Restaurant Le Brouillarta located right on beach side. We had a tough time finding a parking spot in old town (and the restaurant doesn't have its own parking) at first but eventually found ourselves a place to park near a bar.



Chef du Cuisine Guillamo Roget began his career as a sommelier for acclaimed Michelin-starred restaurants such as Ruffet, Le Mas de Candie, and Les Freres Ibarbour before trading in his decanter for an apron when he discovered his love for cooking a few years ago. With Chef Guillamo's delectable menu inspired by the flavors of southern France and Spain, Restaurant Le Brouillarta finally received its much deserved first Michelin star in 2019.



It's imperative that we get this table by the window overlooking the promenade and beach so we can enjoy the Michelin starred meal and view all at the same time.




Restaurant Le Brouillarta is open for lunch and dinner from Wednesday to Sunday (rare to have a Michelin starred restaurant open on Sundays). During lunch service, they offer a 3-course market menu (€53) and 5-course tasting menu (€63). We are going to have another feast in San Sebastien tonight so everyone went with the lighter 3-course menu.



We started off with two small nibbles, firstly a tiny bowl of leek purée and potato foam topped with drops of olive oil, accompanied by minced hake and chives covered with a layer of hake emulsion.



Mom kicked off the meal with some delicious pan-seared sea scallops, decorated with a strip of rutabaga (I was told it was something like a turnip), hazelnut, cardamome and zesty combawa, and finished off wonderfully with a smoky parsley emulsion. She's a sucker for scallops so needless to say, she's real happy about her starter.



The second starter was a beautifully plated dish of beef tartare, topped elegantly with parsley foam, sage ice-cream and Osciètre caviar.



The raw beef, blended with grapefruit, chopped raw oysters and walnuts, had absolutely incredible texture. There was a wonderful symphony of palatable flavors coming from the salty oyster, umami-rich caviar, citrsuy grapefruit and earthy parsley foam that really brought out the best of the French beef.

What's been even more impressive was the contrasting temperature from the raw beef, to the parsley foam and sage ice-cream. A terrible dish with spectacular amount of finesse and innovation.



I had the foie Gras à la Plancha myself. The pan-seared duck foie gras topped gorgeously with a large piece of langoustine, was amazingly matched with some extra heat from the ginger confit and zesty flavors of the clementine purée. An intensive prawn sauce provided the dish with a powerful finish. 



Little guy was presented with his pasta and hake fish when we were all busy with our starters.



While we all had different ideas about our starters, we ended up having the same main dish, farm pigeon cuz there's no denying that France has arguably the best breed of pigeon in the world. This was done two ways with the pigeon breast roasted and leg confit producing slightly different textures and flavors.



The succulent pigeon breast was roasted to absolute perfection. Very lovely bouncy texture and the flavors were elevated further with a flavorful pigeon jus, salsify purée, cheese foam, roasted almonds and black truffle shavings. Unfortunately, texture-wise the confit leg paled in comparison.



Dessert was a beautiful apple themed one featuring raw and cooked Granny Smith.



Sitting on top of the crispy sable biscuit base were cinnamon mousse with a hint of vanilla from Madagarscar and a scoop of green apple sorbet.



Hidden in the middle, cooked Granny Smith compote which tasted more like apple gelée. Very nice.

By the time I finished my tasty apple dessert, it was almost 3pm so we quickly settled the bill and got ourselves ready to drive down to San Sebastien before it gets dark.



The Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France probably deserves a week of our time but too bad our stay ended before it even got started. Perhaps I should consider coming back in the winter of 2020.





Food Rating: 7.8/10
Price: €€€
Address: 48 promenade Jacques Thibaud, 64500 Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
Tel: +33 (0)5 5951-2951
Website: www.restaurant-lebrouillarta.com
Opening Hours: 12:30pm - 2:00pm, 7:30pm - 10:00pm (Wed - Sun)