Chemin Ttalienea, Pyrénées-Atlantiques
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In the Basque Country a house is expected to outlive its owners. Families come and go, but the farm keeps its name, and quite often lends it to them. Ibarboure is one of those borrowed names. It means, roughly, the head of the valley, which is a fine thing to be called. The sign above the door in Bidart is humbler and far more precise: Les Frères Ibarboure. The Ibarboure brothers.
The first brothers were Philippe and Martin, sons of innkeepers from Guéthary next door, who opened a hotel and restaurant together in the late 1980s, in the green hills behind Bidart. Years later they parted on friendly terms, and the kitchen passed to Philippe's sons, Xabi and Patrice. So the brothers changed, and the sign stayed exactly as it was. It has never needed correcting.
The house stands in a quiet park on the inland side of the village, where the ocean is a rumour to the west and the first folds of the Pyrenees rise to the east. A dozen or so rooms open onto the lawn, and a pool waits where the trees begin. Nothing here shouts. The house is saving its voice for dinner.
Xabi, the elder, cooks the savoury half of the evening, and he cooks close to home. The fish was landed at Saint-Jean-de-Luz a few hours earlier, and the eggs come from a hill farm in Sare. On the plate, though, it all feels light and modern, as if the Basque Country had just been to a very good barber.
Then the meal changes hands. The savoury plates disappear, there is a small, expectant pause, and the younger brother steps in. Patrice wears the blue, white and red collar of a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, the highest title French craftsmanship can bestow, and his desserts read like an answer to everything his brother has just said. In most families the younger brother rarely gets the last word. Here he gets it every night, and it is usually made of chocolate.
The brothers can do a great deal, but they cannot conjure up a sea view. The beach needs a car, and the house keeps the rhythm of a family business, with the restaurant resting a couple of days a week and its few rooms spoken for well before summer. Evenings end with a glass of Irouléguy on the terrace rather than anything louder. It belongs to people who plan their holidays around a table.
The sign outside still says Les Frères Ibarboure. It has now been accurate for two generations of brothers, which is more than most hotel signs can claim. The Basques were right about houses. Owners pass through. A good name simply waits for the next pair.
Before Bidart
Philippe Ibarboure's parents ran a family guesthouse at Briketenia in Guéthary, the next village south; Philippe and his wife Anne-Marie turned it into a restaurant open all year before he and his brother Martin moved to Bidart in 1988.
All thirteen rooms are in two neo-Basque buildings in the park, and every one has a private loggia facing the pool, the lawn and the woods. Seven are Confort rooms like this one, with king-size or twin beds and both bath and shower. The Supérieure categories add a terrace; the three Luxe rooms are the largest.
The pool lies in the garden below the room loggias, with loungers and parasols on the grass around it, and is heated in season from May. Breakfast is laid out facing it, and room service reaches the poolside. Further into the trees, a wooden cabin built by L'Atelier des Pins holds a sauna and a Nordic bath, for adults only.
The restaurant occupies an eighteenth-century Basque house on the same grounds as the hotel, divided into three dining rooms. The furniture is by Alki, the tables by Metal Design, the stained glass by Gérald Franzetti. The cellar opens onto the room, with more than 13,000 bottles in around 1,200 references, and outside there is a terrace shaded by large oaks.
Xabi Ibarboure trained with the Pourcel brothers, at La Côte Saint-Jacques and at Le Meurice before returning home in 2008, and has led the kitchen since 2012. Patrice joined him in 2013 from Daniel Boulud in New York. Herbs and edible flowers come from a garden beside the restaurant; most other produce from within 150 kilometres.
At a glance
Where
281 Chemin Ttalienea, 64210 Bidart, Pyrénées-Atlantiques; inland of the village in a two-hectare wooded park, between Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz; Uhabia beach a few kilometres away; Biarritz airport and station about ten minutes by car
Why this one
Savoury from Xabi, sweet from Patrice.
Thirteen rooms over pool and park.
The restaurant shares the grounds.
The Edit Notes
The restaurant closes on Tuesday and Wednesday from October to June, and on Wednesday from July to September, and the room-service menu stops on those days too. A two-night stay that straddles Tuesday and Wednesday out of season can leave no dinner on the estate at all. The house also takes annual breaks: the last published ones fell in November, January and March, and the dates for the coming winter should be checked before booking.
Seven of the thirteen rooms are Confort, so that is what most bookings get. The single Supérieure adds a terrace and a cascade shower; the two Supérieure plus have both a bath and a shower, and one is described as at garden level with no room above it. The three Luxe rooms are the largest, some with a whirlpool bath. Room sizes on the official site do not agree with each other, so ask for the square metres before choosing.
The pool is heated from May until autumn; the hotel's pages give October as the end, the home page November. Outside that window the draw is the wooden cabin with its sauna and Nordic bath, which stays open all year but is reserved for adults. Families with children therefore get the most from a summer stay. There is no indoor spa: massages are given by an outside therapist and need to be booked in advance.
The house sits in the green hills inland, so the Uhabia beach and the village of Bidart are a drive or a bike ride away; the hotel lends electric bikes on booking, and parking with charging points is included. Biarritz airport and station are about ten minutes by car. For dinner the restaurant asks guests to dress elegantly, which is worth knowing before packing for a beach holiday on the Basque coast.
The price question
The money buys a quiet room with a loggia a short walk from the brothers' dining room, in a park where the evening is built around dinner. It does not buy the sea: there is no ocean view, the beach needs a car or a bike, the spa is a cabin rather than a building, and the restaurant closes one or two days a week.
Book it for two nights built around one long dinner, with the restaurant's open days fixed first, and in summer if the pool matters. A beach week without a car, or a short stay that falls on Tuesday and Wednesday out of season, is better placed elsewhere or on other dates.
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The Extra Edit
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