Restaurant in Dima, Spain
One Michelin star, real farmhouse format.
Garena is a Michelin-starred (2024) farmhouse restaurant in Dima's Arratia Valley, serving contemporary Basque tasting menus rooted in local farming tradition. At €€€€, it earns its price through the combination of a 17th-century baserri setting, Chef Julen Baz's grilling-focused cooking, and a service experience that connects the meal to its place. Hard to book, and worth the effort.
If you have been to Garena before, the honest answer is: yes, go back. The setting in Dima's Arratia Valley does not lose its effect on a second visit, and the cooking under Chef Julen Baz has deepened rather than drifted since the restaurant earned its Michelin star in 2024. What changes is how much you notice. First-timers are absorbed by the 17th-century farmhouse (baserri), the pre-meal ritual of burning laurel branches, the views across the valley. Return visitors can settle into the experience itself and judge the cooking on its own terms. It holds up.
The question is whether you are booking the right version of Garena for your occasion. There are three distinct spaces here: the taberna on the ground floor, which runs a more informal menu; the fine-dining restaurant on the first floor, where the full tasting menus are served; and a private floor above, usually reserved for groups. For a special occasion, the first floor is the clear choice. For a group dinner that wants privacy and a more flexible format, the upper space is worth asking about. Do not arrive expecting a single unified venue and then default to the taberna — the experiences are genuinely different.
The physical setting does most of the work before a dish arrives. The baserri dates to the 17th century, and the dining room on the first floor carries the weight of that history without leaning on it theatrically. The stone architecture, the farmhouse proportions, and the surrounding vineyards give the room a substance that purpose-built fine-dining spaces rarely achieve. For a special occasion, the setting alone justifies the trip out from Bilbao — this is not a restaurant you could replicate on a high street.
Service pitch at Garena is calibrated to match the setting: informed and present without being formal to the point of stiffness. In a €€€€ context, that matters. The ritual elements , the laurel burning, the education around native cattle breeds from the Mugarrieta farm, the explanation of traditional preserving methods , are woven into the service rather than performed as a theatre piece. Whether that earns the price point depends on how you respond to context as part of a meal. If you want a purely technical fine-dining experience where the food is the only subject, Garena's storytelling approach may feel like overhead. If the connection between cooking, place, and farming tradition adds value for you, the service structure here is better integrated than at most restaurants in this price tier. The cider pairings for dessert are a signal of the same sensibility: local, specific, and not obviously commercial.
Two tasting menus , Gurea and Garena , are both rooted in the subsistence cooking of Basque farmhouses. The emphasis is on grilled dishes and locally sourced ingredients, with the Mugarrieta cattle farm providing direct supply into the kitchen. This is not progressive Basque cuisine in the mould of Azurmendi in Larrabetzu or Arzak in San Sebastián, where the cooking pushes away from tradition to test what Basque flavour can become. Garena moves in the opposite direction: it uses modern technique in service of farmhouse culture rather than as a departure from it. That is a distinct position, and the Michelin recognition in 2024 suggests it is being executed with enough rigour to warrant attention.
Specific dishes are not confirmed in our data, so treat any third-party menu descriptions as subject to change. What the menus communicate consistently is a focus on grilling, on produce with a traceable local origin, and on the kind of cooking that grandmothers in Basque farmhouses would recognise even when the presentation has moved on. The chilled ciders paired with dessert are noted as a highlight by multiple sources and are a practical signal of how seriously the kitchen takes the local pairing logic.
Hours: Monday 1:30 PM–3:30 PM, Thursday–Friday 1:30 PM–3:30 PM, Saturday 12 PM–10:30 PM, Sunday 12 PM–8 PM. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Budget: €€€€ , plan for a tasting menu spend. Reservations: Hard to book; advance planning is essential, particularly for weekend slots. Location: Bº Iturriotz, 11, 48141 Lamindao, Biscay , a rural farmhouse setting in the Arratia Valley, requiring your own transport from Bilbao. Dress: No confirmed dress code, but the first-floor dining room and price point suggest smart-casual at minimum. Groups: A dedicated private space on the upper floor is available, usually reserved for groups , contact the restaurant directly to arrange. Dietary restrictions: Not confirmed in our data; contact ahead of your visit.
Garena is in our full Dima restaurants guide. If you are planning a wider trip to the region, see also our Dima hotels guide, Dima bars guide, Dima wineries guide, and Dima experiences guide. For the broader picture of Michelin-level dining in northern Spain, compare with Mugaritz in Errenteria and Martin Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria. Outside the Basque region, El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Quique Dacosta in Dénia, and Ricard Camarena in València represent the wider Spanish fine-dining context worth knowing before you decide where your budget goes. For those comparing internationally, Atrio in Cáceres, César in New York City, and Jungsik in Seoul offer useful reference points on what €€€€ contemporary cooking looks like in other markets.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garena | Contemporary | €€€€ | Hard |
| Aponiente | Progressive - Seafood, Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
| Arzak | Modern Basque, Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
| Azurmendi | Progressive, Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
| Cocina Hermanos Torres | Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
| DiverXO | Progressive - Asian, Creative | €€€€ | Unknown |
How Garena stacks up against the competition.
No specific dietary accommodation policy is documented for Garena. Given that both menus are tightly structured around Basque farmhouse traditions with a strong focus on grilled meats and locally sourced produce, the format may be limiting for guests with significant dietary restrictions. check the venue's official channels before booking to confirm what adjustments, if any, are possible within the tasting-menu structure.
The kitchen does not operate à la carte in the main restaurant — your choice is between the Gurea and Garena tasting menus, both centred on grilled dishes and farmhouse traditions. The taberna on the ground floor offers a more informal menu if you want flexibility. Chilled cider is the documented pairing for desserts, and the experience includes context around native cattle breeds from the Mugarrieta farm and traditional preserving methods.
Yes. There is a dedicated private space on the top floor, above both the taberna and the first-floor restaurant, which is reserved primarily for groups. If you are planning a group visit, request that floor specifically rather than defaulting to the main dining room. Contact ahead of your visit to confirm availability, as the format is different from a standard group reservation at a city restaurant.
Lunch is the default format Monday, Thursday, and Friday, with a 1:30 PM–3:30 PM window only. Saturday opens at noon and runs until 10:30 PM, making it the one day where both a long lunch and an evening sitting are possible. The Arratia Valley setting is arguably better experienced in daylight, which makes Saturday lunch the strongest booking option for most visitors. Sunday runs noon to 8 PM, also worth considering.
At €€€€ pricing with a 2024 Michelin star, Garena earns its place if you are after a full farmhouse tasting-menu experience rather than à la carte flexibility. The two menus — Gurea and Garena — are built around Basque subsistence cooking and locally sourced ingredients, so the value is tied to how much you want that specific format. If you want a more urban fine-dining setting, Azurmendi (also Michelin-starred, near Bilbao) offers a comparison point, but Garena's rural baserri setting is a different proposition entirely.
Yes, with caveats on format. The 17th-century baserri, the laurel-burning ritual before each sitting, and the Michelin-starred cooking all create a clear sense of occasion. The first-floor restaurant is the right room for a formal celebration; the taberna is better if you want the setting without the full tasting-menu commitment. For a group celebration, the private top-floor space is the obvious choice.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
