Restaurante Abaroa

The Abaroa Restaurant has two establishments in Bilbao: in the Plaza del Museo number 3 and in Campo Volantín number 13; they have another one in Las Arenas and another one in Castrourdiales.

It specializes in Basque cuisine and it has a lunch menu and a tasting menu. As a fun fact, “abaroa” means “shelter” in Basque. I was there in October 2008 on a Saturday in the one of the Plaza del Museo, in front of the Museum of Fine Arts. It wasn’t far from the Guggenheim, since we walked from there.

I really liked the decoration, although it was a bit dark for my taste. They combined elements and antiquities of the Basque culture with modern elements, like the lamps. I noticed that one of the walls had headboards decorated with paintings. Even though it had an extensive menu with entrees, meats and fish, we ordered the lunch menu that cost 18 €, since it was weekend (on weekdays it’s 10 €). we thought that the price was quite decent.

The Abaroa Restaurant is located in the area of Indautxu in the capital of Bilbao. The restaurant is born as an innovative model of restoration, based in the cultural and gastronomical Basque tradition.

It supports itself in the quality of the product that they control from its origins, and in the exquisite service that offers traditional homemade Basque cuisine at reasonable prices. Some of its most outstanding dishes are: the “pil-pil” codfish (garlic and pepper sauce), Biscayan codfish, peppers filled with codfish and red beans.

The restaurant offers a lunch menu, a weekend menu and a tasting menu.