They say when you come to Biarritz, you better come hungry. It might not boast of the brightest constellation of Michelin-starred restaurants (that plaudit goes to Basque sister town, San Sebastian) but what it does have is an extraordinary number of places to gorge yourself with wild abandon. Why? Here in Biarritz, food is the thing.
For those who grow up in French Basque Country, it’s practically a religion. A deep-rooted reverence for honest ingredients, fostered early in childhood and (thankfully) no fancy French chicanery in the kitchens, just simple cooking over a fire. It’s a marked contrast to Biarritz’s glamorous history: a playground for Europe’s rich and royal after Empress Eugenie came for the healing waters (inspiring Napoleon III to build her a summer palace, now the Hotel Imperial). It’s where Coco Chanel opened her first boutique outside Paris, Jean Cocteau and Frank Sinatra spent summers and a place immortalised in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
