Restaurant in Valle de Carranza, Spain
Estate Txakoli, farm meat, fair price.
A third-generation family restaurant in the Valle de Carranza with a Michelin Plate (2024), Casa Garras earns its recognition through tight local sourcing: Karrantza meat, Cantabrian fish, and estate-grown Txakoli. At the €€ price point, it delivers more regional authenticity than restaurants charging twice as much. Book easily; plan ahead only on hours.
If you are comparing Casa Garras to the parade of high-concept Basque restaurants that dominate northern Spain's dining conversation, you are looking at the wrong benchmark. Arzak in San Sebastián and Azurmendi in Larrabetzu sit at €€€€ and require planning months in advance. Casa Garras operates at €€ and is easy to book. That price gap is the first thing to understand, because the question is not whether Casa Garras matches those rooms on ambition — it does not, nor does it try to. The question is whether it delivers something those restaurants cannot: a deeply rooted, ingredient-driven meal that costs a fraction of the price, in a valley that most visitors never reach. The answer is yes, with some conditions.
Casa Garras is a third-generation family restaurant in Barrio Concha, in the Valle de Carranza in Biscay, and its sourcing setup is the core reason to visit. The kitchen draws meat from the nearby Karrantza valley — including ox raised on the family's own farm , fish from the Cantabrian Sea, and Txakoli wine from its own vineyard. That degree of vertical integration is unusual at any price point. At €€, it is rare enough to shift the calculus in the restaurant's favour significantly. The Michelin Plate recognition in 2024 confirms that the kitchen delivers on the promise of those ingredients. A 4.5 Google rating across 2,231 reviews gives the same signal from a much larger sample of diners.
If you have been once and ordered your way through the menu cautiously, consider returning and leaning into the more traditional preparations. The Vizcaya-style pig's trotters and the stuffed squid with squid ink foam are the dishes that Michelin inspectors specifically noted. The trotters in particular showcase what the kitchen does well: classical Basque technique applied to local meat, with just enough refinement to feel considered rather than rustic. The squid preparation shows the contemporary edge that chef Txema Llamosas works into an otherwise traditional framework. Both dishes are worth ordering if you are a returning guest deciding where to focus.
The Txakoli from the family's own vineyard is a practical detail worth noting. Most restaurants in the region source Txakoli from the Getaria, Álava, or Vizcaya denominations. Casa Garras pours its own. If Txakoli is a category you follow, that gives you a reference point you will not easily find elsewhere in Biscay at this price tier.
The €€ price range signals honest regional value, not compromise. The kitchen's sourcing model , family farm, local fishing waters, estate Txakoli , functions as a filter on the menu. What you get on the plate is constrained by what the land and sea around Carranza produce seasonally. That means the menu is not trying to impress through exotic imports or technical showmanship. It is trying to do justice to ingredients that are already good. For a returning guest, that is the lens through which to read the menu: trust the preparations built around the sourcing, and be more cautious about anything that strays too far from those pillars.
Casa Garras also hosts day events themed around the ox reared on the family farm. If you are visiting the Valle de Carranza with a group and want a more structured experience, these events offer a different format from a standard dinner booking. The restaurant's recent Michelin Plate recognition in 2024 is the most meaningful temporal marker here , it confirms that the kitchen's current direction is working, and that the combination of updated traditional cuisine with gourmet touches has found a register that resonates with inspectors.
The restaurant sits at Barrio Concha, 6, in the Concha area of Biscay. Booking is direct , this is not a table that requires months of lead time. No specific hours or online booking link are confirmed in the data available to us, so contact the restaurant directly to confirm reservation times before making the trip. Given the valley's rural setting, driving is the practical choice for most visitors. If you are combining the meal with broader exploration of the area, our full Valle de Carranza restaurants guide, hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide cover the surrounding area.
Casa Garras makes most sense for guests who want a grounded, ingredient-led Basque meal without the reservation anxiety or the €€€€ spend of the region's flagship restaurants. It is a strong choice for a special occasion that does not require spectacle, or for a returning visitor to the Basque Country who has already ticked the high-profile rooms and wants something with more local character. It is less suited to guests who are visiting northern Spain primarily for technical gastronomy and expect the kind of multi-course architecture that places like Mugaritz in Errenteria or Martin Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria deliver. For traditional Cuisine at a comparable price tier with similar sourcing integrity, Coto de Quevedo Evolución in Torre de Juan Abad and Cave à Vin & à Manger in Narbonne are the closest reference points in the traditional cuisine category across the broader region, though the Basque context here is distinct enough that comparisons are mainly useful at the price-tier level.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casa Garras | Traditional Cuisine | €€ | A third-generation family-run restaurant offering guests updated traditional cuisine with a gourmet touch, including meat from nearby Karrantza, fish from the Cantabrian Sea and Txakoli wine from its own vineyard. Here, chef Txema Llamosas conjures up classic dishes from the region alongside more contemporary recipes (we particularly enjoyed the Vizcaya-style pig’s trotters and the stuffed squid with a squid ink foam). It also hosts day events themed on ox reared on the family farm.; A third-generation family-run restaurant offering guests updated traditional cuisine with a gourmet touch, including meat from nearby Karrantza, fish from the Cantabrian Sea and Txakoli wine from its own vineyard.; Michelin Plate (2024) | Easy | — |
| Quique Dacosta | Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| El Celler de Can Roca | Progressive Spanish, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Arzak | Modern Basque, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Azurmendi | Progressive, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Aponiente | Progressive - Seafood, Creative | €€€€ | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
How Casa Garras stacks up against the competition.
Yes, with caveats. The Michelin Plate recognition and third-generation family provenance give it enough gravity for a meaningful meal, and the day events themed around the family farm's ox make it a genuinely distinctive setting for a group celebration. It is not a white-tablecloth occasion restaurant in the formal sense, so if your special occasion requires that register, look elsewhere. For a landmark birthday or anniversary where the story of the food matters more than the theatre of service, it holds up well at €€.
Bar seating details are not confirmed in available records for Casa Garras. Given its family-restaurant format in a rural Biscay village, a dedicated dining bar is less likely than at urban Basque pintxos bars. Book a table to be safe, particularly if you are travelling specifically for the meal.
No specific dietary policy is documented for Casa Garras. The kitchen's identity is built around Basque regional products — Karrantza meat, Cantabrian fish, estate Txakoli — so pescatarians will find options, but the menu leans heavily on animal proteins. check the venue's official channels ahead of your visit if you have restrictions, as traditional regional menus often have limited flexibility.
The Vizcaya-style pig's trotters and the stuffed squid with squid ink foam are the dishes the restaurant itself highlights, and they anchor the Basque regional identity the kitchen is built around. Pair either with the estate Txakoli, which is produced from the family's own vineyard — that combination is not something you can replicate at a generic Basque restaurant.
A formal tasting menu format is not confirmed in the venue data. Casa Garras operates as a traditional family restaurant with a gourmet touch rather than a structured omakase-style format, so expect à la carte or set-meal options. At €€ pricing, the value question is almost moot — the sourcing quality alone (own-farm, own-vineyard, local fishing waters) justifies the spend at this price tier.
There are no directly comparable restaurants documented within Valle de Carranza itself. The nearest credentialed Basque alternatives require moving toward Bilbao or the coast: Azurmendi (three Michelin stars, Larrabetzu) is the benchmark for high-end Basque innovation, while Arzak (San Sebastián) represents the classic Basque nouvelle tradition. Both are significantly more expensive and harder to book. Casa Garras fills a different role — grounded regional cooking at an accessible price point — so the comparison depends on what you are actually looking for.
At €€, yes, without much qualification. The sourcing setup — meat from the family farm near Karrantza, fish from the Cantabrian Sea, Txakoli from the estate vineyard — is the kind of vertical integration that restaurants at twice the price often only approximate. The Michelin Plate (2024) confirms the kitchen converts that sourcing into food worth eating. If you are in Biscay and want a grounded Basque meal without the reservation anxiety or the €€€€ spend of the region's headline names, Casa Garras is a practical choice.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
