Asador Bedua, a manor house next to the Urola River that preserves its tradition
Located next to the Urola River in Zumaia, Asador Bedua is a seafood restaurant with traditional recipes, and its cod omelet is a good starting point.
Years have passed since Josemari Iriondo's small fishing boat last set sail. It remains moored at the mouth of the Urola River, just outside Zumaia, where he used it to catch young eels. Today, the species is critically endangered, and the boat seems like a distant memory. The restaurant is run by the fourth generation of women in the hospitality industry.
This imposing manor house, with its sturdy walls and arched windows, has served as a fish market, tollbooth, customs house, and blacksmith's shop, until Marian Iriondo's great-grandmother converted it into a roadside restaurant. She served tortillas and peppers to summer visitors to Zarautz by the small stone bridge that crosses the estuary, helping to balance the family accounts. Her daughter, María Ángeles Lopetegui, saw that it could be more than just a source of seasonal income, and her granddaughter, Isabel Antía, transformed it into what it is today: a restaurant specializing in seafood and traditional recipes, on par with the best in the Basque Country.
Now Marian runs the restaurant. The cuisine has changed very little in recent decades ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it"), but each year the service, the tableware, and the cutlery are refined, and a wine list as ambitious as it is coherent is developed. Across the border in France, Bedua would probably boast a Michelin star for its excellence in traditional cuisine. Here, however, if you don't offer a tasting menu featuring innovative techniques, you seem to go almost unnoticed by tourist guides.
The borage, grown in the garden across the street, is peeled and cooked with a delicacy that deserves a masterclass: its texture confirms it was picked that very morning. It's served with parmentier potatoes, a poached egg, and plenty of grated truffle.
The restaurant is famous for its seafood, baked fish, and pigeon stew. As an almost childlike indulgence, the breaded lobster tails are well worth trying, a Basque way of enjoying a delicacy that seems perfectly natural. If the species ever recovers, Bedua would be the place to eat young eels, not as a show-off, but as a tribute to their history.
