Dom Pérignon has teamed up with the three-star restaurant Azurmendi, by five-star chef Eneko Atxa, to create “the most beautiful garden in the world” and to offer the most exclusive imperial table in Spain where you can pair the sparkling wines of this famous champagne house with two exceptional tasting menus, which cover the best proposals of this stellar restaurant in Bizkaia. The staging is announced as “a tribute to the history and heritage of Dom Pérignon, as well as its origins, radicality, contrasts and creative freedom.” These attributes star in the paintings that hang in the restaurant’s booth.
Such a chosen imperial table is reserved for a maximum of 12 lucky diners (and can only be enjoyed with a minimum of 6 customers). Here you can taste, upon prior reservation at the restaurant, the two select menus offered, respectively, at 850 and 1,000 euros per diner.
To create their floral garden they have had the collaboration of interior designer María Villalón. In the nature of Villalón Studio is “the search for harmony in design from the sum of creative talents.” They seek to create “respectful and transcendent spaces.” The most beautiful garden in the world is an anteroom to the Azurmendi dining room, which has become an area “of tactile and silky exploration.”
The glass space has been inspired by the aromas, connotations and tones of Dom Pérignon Rosé, which has just released its new vintage (2009). It is a champagne with a beautiful pale pink color with copper tones. It exhibits good foaming, with a perlage of fine and tiny bubbles. It is the offspring of a sunny and hot summer, and of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes. It shows a profusion of ripe red fruits (from sour strawberries to raspberries or cherries), yeasts and dried fruits. It is round, mineral and elegant, but with good acidity. Very creditably, it does not appear to have been so long-bred.
Dom Pérignon states that it is a champagne that “captivates with its intimate and tender character.” And it is also noted that it is “an intensely lively wine, the fruit of the harvest in all its splendor.” Its price is around 500 euros. The traditional Atxa greenhouse is now an area of ??contrasts and natural materials. In this edible garden, a place “of emotions and sensations”, they ensure that it is enjoyed in peace together with an eclectic element, the Azurmendi flower, created expressly to decorate a dry garden reminiscent of Japan.
In it, the pink flower coexists with the elements that allow its creation: earth, minerals, water, air and light. Eneko Atxa explains that “it is a peculiar and unique garden of its kind, with a flower, that of Azurmendi, that you will not find anywhere else.” He adds that, “continuing with our philosophy of respect for the environment and coexistence”, this flower was born, created from the organic waste that is produced in Azurmendi. From plant to plant you can taste bites of cauliflower, basil flower branches, leaves and a beautiful rose and its enveloping nectar.
Contrasts and textures, with precise cooking points, shine with seasonal products, some just harvested, in the two tasting menus of the Dom Pérignon Table. With an impeccable gastronomic discourse, dishes designed to pair with the Dom Pérignon Vintage 2013, 2004 and 2000 and the recently released Rosé Vintage 2009 dance harmoniously on the table along with wine cellar wonders such as the rare and very exclusive Plénitude 2 and 3.
Eneko Atxa describes as “fundamental” the creative work he does with sommelier Aitor Maiztegi. Raphaël Hernández, senior brand manager of Dom Pérignon in Spain, highlights that it is “a unique experience.” He also highlights the commitment “to reuse and to work as sustainably as possible”, both at Dom Pérignon and at this restaurant in the Asúa Valley of Bizkaia.
The dishes at the Dom Pérignon table begin with the gardener’s harvest, the crab, caviar and nori, sea bread, champagne and butter mollusks, the oyster under wax, the shrimp and old tomato and the parpatana marmitako. It continues with a vegetable pie in the barrel, tradition and evolution of cod and chickpea and a spectacular lobster in its juice from press carcasses (with an excellent cooking point) and pickles (not very harmonious with the pairing).
Atxa’s proposal is completed with the castañeta, Iberian pâté and truffle cake and a Joselito, Bilbao, Champagne and Xalapa flan. He concludes with cheeses and a sweet offering of fig, yeast, pistachio and citrus, peanut and chocolate tart and the box of petits fours. The pairing with Dom Pérignon champagnes is one of contrasts and harmonies, and also chromatic. Never before has a champagne flourished so much in a restaurant.