A three-Michelin starred “alchemist” named the best woman chef in the world is to open her first London restaurant in February.
Elena Arzak, 43, who runs the £250-a-head Arzak restaurant in San Sebastian with her father Juan Mari, will launch an offshoot at Belgravia’s five-star Halkin hotel.
She is the fourth generation of her family to head the restaurant in northern Spain’s Basque country. Her father was the first Spanish chef to win a third Michelin star.
The new restaurant, called Ametsa — the Basque word for “dream” — will replace Nahm, the first Thai restaurant outside Thailand to win a Michelin star (it lost it last year).
It will be the first outpost of Arzak outside Spain.
The chef, a mother of two, becomes the latest overseas kitchen star to beat a path to a prestige site in the capital, following in the footsteps of the likes of Alain Ducasse, Joël Robuchon and Wolfgang Puck.
Arzak, founded in 1897, has been ranked in the top 10 in the “World’s Fifty Best Restaurants” awards since 2006. It is famed for a blend of traditional Basque ingredients such as hake, cod and calamari and for spectacular molecular gastronomy.
Trademark dishes include “ham and tomato smoke” (created by pouring tea onto dry ice), “low tide monkfish,” “pistachio and beetroot stone” and “playing marbles with chocolate and soup”. Ms Arzak has said of her cooking that “we like taking risks because without risks you don’t move forward” — although the London menu is likely to be adapted to allow for more British-sourced produce.
The chefs at Ametsa will be advised by Arzak Instruction, a five-strong team including Elena and her father set up “to deliver the philosophies of a unique cooking style”.
Ms Arzak, who trained at Le Gavroche in London and El Bulli in Spain, said: “Ametsa means ‘dream’ in our language. The dream of a kitchen beyond our frontiers in the middle of London in the heart of the Halkin hotel.”
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The interiors are being designed by Wimbledon-based AB Rogers, who previously worked on a branch of the Little Chef chain that was given an overhaul by TV chef Heston Blumenthal.
