Aitor Arregi

He knows it first: if you ask about Aitor Arregi you hear the answer "who?". If instead you ask about Elkano, no one doubts because everyone calls the great master of ceremonies of the Basque sea, Aitor precisely, with the name of the restaurant he inherited from his parents, Mari Jose and Pedro, who in turn received it from grandmother Joxepa. They opened it in 1964 in Getaria, about thirty kilometers from San Sebastian, towards Bilbao and the name derives from Juan Sebastian Elkano, a Basque navigator at the time of Magellan, between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century, the first European to circumnavigate the globe.

Aitor spied the trade of the gridiron from an early age and later "distracted himself" by being a professional footballer for a decade, even in the top flight, playing for clubs such as Villareal and Alaves, playing the role of left back. In 2002 he definitively returned to Elkano, from which he had never really left, to continue the family legacy, alongside his parents. In 2014, the same year the restaurant received its first Michelin Star, his father Pedro died.

Following in his father's footsteps, Aitor always welcomes all diners, explaining to them the magnificent seafood products that dot the gastronomic landscape of the Bay of Biscay. The sea in absolute quality, faithful to a phrase that Pedro loved to repeat: «The secret is to buy a great product and then not ruin it». One above all: el rodaballo, the turbot. It's a flag that won't be lowered. Aitor serves it by telling a thousand stories there next to your table, but you imagine him in the port below, with his back to the land which interests him very little: «We Basques are always interested in the sea, setting sail, fishing and trading».

In this spark the entire legend of this highly sought-after table is written, to which, in 2016, Aitor adds a new project: together with his chef Pablo Vicari, he manages Cataria restaurant in the antipodes of the Basque Country, in Chiclana de la Frontera on the coast of Cadiz, in Andalusia.

The recognitions accumulated in the last decade cannot be counted: in 2018 it debuted in the World's 50Best in 77th place and it is only the beginning of a climb that in 2024 will see Elkano in 28th place, in the elite of the greatest restaurants in the world. In the year 2021, he gets the 3 soles (the maximum) for the Repsol Guide. In August 2023 a third restaurant opens in Mallorca, Balearic Islands: it is called Guethary and extends the art of Basque grilling to Mediterranean fish.