Tag Archives: akelare

Akelare: Bekarki

Menu number two from Akelare. Menu one is here.

Fireplace

Prawns from Fireplace
Prawns and french beans cooked in “Orujo” fireplace. Best dish at Akelare, hands down. Delicious sweet shrimp, reminiscent of ama ebi.

Foie Gras
Foie gras with “salt flakes and grain pepper”. So clever. The peppercorns are actually puffed rice and the salt flakes are sugar. The additional textures definitely enhance the foie.

Xangurro in its essence
Xangurro (crab) with pasta grains.

Red Scorpionfish
Red Scorpionfish, served with…

Umami!
Umami! Dried and shaved konbu, I think.

Cod box with shavings
Cod with fried noodles.

Pigeon
Roasted Pigeon with Mole and Cocoa.

Evolution
Milk and grape: Cheese & wine in parallel evolution.
Starting from the left, fresher grapes and milk all the way to blue cheese and Pedro Ximenez.

Tocino del Cielo
Orange “Tocino de Cielo” Sheet with Fruit Leaves. Scrape it off the plate and into your mouuuuth.

I think this was the best menu. Numnumnum, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the desserts.

Akelare: The Akelare Classics

Now for the last menu! The Akelare Classics.

Lobster Salad
Lobster salad with cider vinegar. A well done lobster salad. Nothing groundbreaking.

Pasta Carpaccio
Pasta carpaccio, piquillo and iberic, with parmesan shrooms. The ham looking bits are actually pasta! And the pasta tastes like meat even though it’s made from veggies. The texture is, not surprisingly, like pasta once you start chewing.

Peas
An add on course of grilled peas and asparagus (the charcoal looking bits). Dad was hoping to relive Asador Exteberri’s marvelous peas, but these came nowhere close. Good, but not quite as life changing.

Rice with periwinkles
Rice with snails and periwinkles in tomato and basil film. Snails, rice. About what you’d expect.

Red Mullet
Red Mullet with Sauce “Fusili”. The curly bits are sauce in magic. The fish was also very well done.

Carved Beef
Carved beef, tail cake with potatoes and peppers. Lumps of beef. With a shredded tail cake. And potato (and pepper, I guess?) chips.

Gin & Tonic
Gin and tonic on a plate. I hate cocktails, but I really liked this dessert. Jelly, juniper sauce and an icecream.

Apple Tart
Apple tart with no fresh apples. But I wouldn’t have known if no one told me. :)

Final thoughts about Akelare:
24 dishes tried over three and a half hours. Wow.
If I were a local, I’d come back — but I’d pick my courses:
Prawns in fireplace and foie gras w/ “salt and pepper” from Bekarki
Pasta Carpaccio, maybe the mullet and the gin & tonic from the Classics
and Xaxu & Coconut Mousse from Aranori.

Akelare: Aranori

Akelare
Akelare!

Akelare Menu
Whoa. Three stars, three different menus. Plus the option of ordering ala carte or replacing any course with any other course.

We ordered one of each menu, so here’s the first of three posts. Because I’m too lazy to do it all now.

Amuse bouche, for all three menus
Sea Garden
Sea garden, prawn sand, oyster leaf, mussel with “shell”, sea urchin sponge, beach pebbles, seaweed coral.

Menu 1: Aranori
Foie Leaves
The leaves and foie under the rain. Light salad dish with a few “leaves” of foie. (The browner leaves) I ended up with a weird foie to salad ratio and too much foie.

Langostine
Green broth, smoked monkfish slices (around the side) & langoustine. The spices started out in a little bag that dissolved when the broth was poured over. Very mild dish.

Beef tartar
Beef tartar with new potato souffle and aromatic herb bread. This is the lightest tartar I’ve ever had.

Hake & kokotxa
Hake and it’s kokotxa with oyster and oyster leaf.

Grouper
Grouper, cous cous made of prawn, served with ocean foam.

Suckling pig
Suckling pig, tomato “bolao” and Iberian emulsion. AND A REALLY CUTE PIG CRACKER. omg. so cute.

Xaxu and coconut mousse
Cake filled with custard, surrounded by frozen coconut mousse. This dish was surprisingly not overly sweet. Probably my favorite dessert at Akelare.

Broken Jar
The Broken Jar of Yogurt, “Gatzatua” and Berries. A very interesting dish of what’s essentially yogurt and berries with a hard sugar container.

This menu was the mildest of the three. For some of the courses, after tasting the equivalent courses with the other menus, Aranori felt bland. On it’s own I doubt I would have noticed.