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[title]It’s March 2018. A severe cold snap has passed, Theresa May is battling Brexit dissent, and a whole turbot, kissed by flames, begins its slow, smoky transformation in a Shoreditch restaurant kitchen. While certainly not the first Basque restaurant in London – Donostia opened in 2012, and Sagardi in 2016 – few of us could have imagined how far Brat would transform British cooking.
Fast forward to 2025, and British dining has embraced influences from Spain’s Basque Country – a fiercely proud region straddling the Bay of Biscay in the north – with remarkable intensity. London leads the charge, with Tomos Parry’s Mountain — his second Basque-inspired venture after Brat — named the UK’s second-best restaurant at the 2024 National Restaurant Awards, just a year after its July 2023 opening.
The Basque boom continued to dominate the capital last year with Ibai’s swanky debut in Farringdon, while Tollington’s in Finsbury Park brought a playful mix of Basque, Catalan and ‘Spanglish’ cuisine to a former fish and chip shop. Meanwhile, restaurants like Lita and Oma — though not explicitly Basque — earned Michelin stars for similar wood-fired grilling techniques. Bar Valette by two-Michelin-starred Isaac McHale opened in early 2025, continuing the trend, while Basque chef residences and pop-ups like Topa and Gorka proliferate across the city, with the now-shuttered Whyte’s running a full Basque menu last summer.
But the movement extends far beyond London’s borders. Up in Manchester, Stow, which opened towards the end of 2024, takes inspiration from Basque-cooking with dishes like flame-grilled red peppers and ex-dairy cow cooked the Basque way. Kiko arrived in the small town of Totnes, Devon, in May last year as a bakery entirely devoted to Basque cheesecake — a trend mirrored in London, with La Marixtu rolling out shops specialising in the caramelised stuff all across the city. With its showstopping centre pieces and its fire-driven techniques appealing to our most primal urges, Basque cuisine has blazed into the global gastronomic limelight. But what, exactly, is behind this growing fixation, and why has it struck such a chord with British diners?
Cooking with fire
For many chefs, the appeal of Basque cooking lies in its simplicity. George Husband and George Brown are the duo behind Gorka, the kitchen pop-up most recently residing at Italo in Vauxhall, and they point to the ‘flavour first’ philosophy that resonates deeply with British cooks who have had to adapt to supply chain challenges.
‘There’s been a long-term shift away from maximalist cooking,’ they note. ‘Margins play a role, but it’s also about the growth of boutique farms and high-quality British produce that now rivals what’s available on the continent.’ This shift has made it possible for British restaurants to embrace that Basque-style simplicity — where a dish might consist of just one or two impeccable ingredients, like a plate of grilled wild mushrooms with confit egg yolk, or a whole John Dory, served only with a gloriously gelatinous sauce made from its own rendered fats and collagen.
The use of fire and wood smoke remains a hallmark of Basque grilling techniques, unveiling complex, aromatic flavours in ways charcoal grilling does not. Brat was pivotal in introducing these methods to London after executive chef Tomos Parry travelled through the region. The result was a kitchen that draws on the cooking culture, techniques and traditions of the Basque Country, ‘ranging from small family-run restaurants in fishing villages to the bustling bars of San Sebastián’, Parry explains. ‘Why it hit the ground running in such a palpable manner is less clear,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure of the exact answer, but I think there weren’t many [chefs] focusing solely on pure fire cooking, sourcing the very best produce the UK has to offer. There is an element of transparency to our offer and I think that was refreshing to some guests.’
Joe Baker, whose bright, spacious restaurant Pêtchi centred around Basque wood-fired grilling techniques, opened in Jersey in 2023, emphasises the power of this approach: ‘These principles are timeless. When applied to a specific place and its products, it allows the essence of that place to come through in a pure and un-distracted way.’ He highlights how wood smoke can be an ingredient itself and is ‘uniquely delicious’ when applied to local produce like Jersey’s shellfish. At Pêtchi, this means wood-fired Écréhous scallop served solo and a lobster rice showcasing the high-quality crustacean available on the island.
Match made in heaven
Jamie Pickles, co-owner of Stow in Manchester, says that open-fire and Basque-inspired cooking is relatively new to the city.
‘We love to cook things that shouldn’t typically be cooked using wood-fired ovens or BBQs,’ he adds, pointing to unexpected dishes like soft milk bread and a smoked cream tart with a satisfying, bitter-edge caramelisation. ‘It takes real attention to detail and care to get these things right. Balance is key to us.’
In recent months, the traditional British gastropub has emerged as an unexpected canvas for Basque culinary expression. In October last year, St John’s Tavern, a pub in Archway, launched a new Basque-leaning menu, while the recently opened Prince Arthur in Belgravia also embraced Basque influences. This follows the reopening of The Hero in Maida Vale, which features a dining room dedicated to open-fire cooking of proteins like turbot, hogget chop and rib eye.
Victoria Mak from Prince Arthur describes their concept as ‘blending the warmth of a traditional British pub with the rich culinary heritage of the Basque region.’ Their menu features dishes like whole brill, red mullet with ajo bianco and turbot-dripping potatoes — a sign of how the cuisine is evolving in the British context.
Back to basics
But Basque cuisine wasn’t always so well understood on those isles. Miguel López de Viñaspre, who owns Sagardi – a San Sebastian restaurant that introduced a London outpost – remembers when Londoners were unfamiliar with basic Basque concepts. ‘When we opened in 2016, we had to explain pintxos, txuleton, Basque cider — everything,’ he recalls. ‘Now, guests arrive already familiar.’
The restaurant’s approach goes beyond mere mimicry. Operating in a new cultural context meant adapting to different products, even while striving to find those that closely resemble the originals. ‘We have cultivated relationships with the few remaining farmers who nurture their cattle into old age, along with fishermen, growers and suppliers who appreciate Basque traditions,’ he says. Today, Sagardi’s menu features seabass, monkfish and turbot sourced from Cornwall Fish Market alongside duck, txuleton beef, as well as piquillo peppers from the Basque country.
They also reimagined the most British of meals through a Basque lens. ‘The one thing we have listened to and adapted is the Sunday roast,’ he says. ‘Early on we recognised the importance of this British tradition and decided to create something that combined the two.’
Their version features txuleton beef, allotment-grown vegetables, and a gravy made from Galician cow bones – a welcome twist on a British classic.
Keeping it fresh
What’s the next frontier for Basque cuisine in the UK? Mak suggests it may be the exploration of lesser-known Basque traditions like fish fat integration into sauces and traditional desserts beyond the now-ubiquitous Basque cheesecake. The Gateau Basque at Bar Valette – a rich cake filled with pastry cream and Pedro Ximénez-spiked mincemeat jam (in lieu of the traditional black cherry jam) – offers some evidence of the latter.
For Baker of Pêtchi, the answer is more open-ended. ‘If you get cooks being inspired by the Basque approach to really get under the skin of where they are in the UK, then interesting things are bound to come of it,’ he says. For de Viñaspre, one thing is clear. ‘It is not a trend,’ he says. ‘Basque cuisine, I believe, is here to stay.’
Read more: the best restaurants in London you should be booking.
Plus, the best things we ate on a foodie tour of the Basque Country.