Ama

After working for the Ducasse machine (Bastide de Moustier and Hôtel de Paris in Monaco), in Aïnoha (Ithuria) and Bidarray (Auberge Ostapé), chefs Manon Grasset and Adrien Layssac found themselves on Edmond Rostand’s home turf, in their restaurant with whitewashed wooden rafters and teal walls. There, they cook up precise meals, like the day we went for lunch: a truly perfect oeuf parfait slow-cooked at 64°C, covered in a root vegetable velouté (parsley and chervil); a beautiful and perfectly grilled Navarre trout steak titillated by fish fumet and served with broccoli prepared a few different ways, grown at L’Orangerie in Anglet; before a really good chocolate-caramel sphere with cacao crumble topping. At night, things get a little fancier: line-caught hake from Saint-Jean-de-Luz with broccoli and Timut pepper; Ibaïama pork tenderloin with sunchokes, chestnuts and black garlic; pineapple, passionfruit and Java pepper… // Gérard Roubeix 

FEELING THIRSTY? : They like to keep things local: Les Cluques, a Béarn red from Mont d’Oraàs (€4.40 a glass), an Irouléguy white from the Domaine Ilarria (€42 a bottle), a Saint-Émilion from the Château La Grâce Dieu (€58) or Basque beers from Eguzki, Ixo, and Akerbeltz (€4.90 for 330 ml).  
PRICE: : Set menus €21-27 (weekday lunch) and €62, à la carte €51-59.