Restaurant Pottoka - Espelette

Traveled with a group of friends to Espelette on a rare sunny day in January. Not much was open. Pottoka was, fortunately. The waitress was very friendly, the decor very pleasant and clean and the menu looked terrific she even said the chef would create something vegetarian for me which they did. All 4 of us were just delighted with our meals. I had a fabulous pumpkin and wild mushroom ragout and my friends had fresh, wild trout which looked just like an enormous hunk of salmon topped with local bacon.The deserts were sublime as well.

We stopped at this restaurant for lunch enjoyed our meal . Service was a little slow but otherwise no issues as food was very good.

Our local French hosts took us to this restaurant a few blocks from the main city square. It was a very good restaurant with an almost exclusive menu of local cuisine. That means lots of meat dishes with medium red pepper flavoring. If you are a vegetarian, neither this restaurant nor this region in Pays-Basque is likely to please you. We had some delicious local soup--sort of a variant on gazpacho, followed by various meat and fish dishes. The friendly waiter helped us through the local cuisine (we spoke in French, so not sure what the English abilities are here) and drank a local variant of sangria. All dishes were excellent. The restaurant is decorated in basque style--lots of wood with white and bright red accents. It was a bit noisy but the restaurant was full on a holiday afternoon. Outdoor tables are available. We had a two year old with us and the restaurant was attentive in getting her a high chair and allowed us to share various dishes with her rather than buy a separate menu items. All in all a very good restaurant in a wonderful Pays-Basque village in France.

Extremely rude waiter. We paid the drink and left, we didn't want to try anything else. By the way, my coke was warm and the glass with only ONE ice cube at 38 degrees outside

After sightseeing and some shopping in Espelette we felt like a drink and a bite. It was too cool to sit outside, but we found a table by the bar at the 'Pottoka '. named after a pony native to the Pays Basque. Inside, separated by a black curtain at the back is a bigger area, the real restaurant, closed now mid-afternoon. The outdoor tables and chairs were unoccupied. The bar itself is very small, for hardly more than three people. There was a waitress, who was friendly, but who had the habit of taking orders from far away, usually busy with something else, like cleaning a table. We asked for some 'Fromage de Brebis ', thus sheep milk cheese, so typical for the Pays Basque. It came with cherry jam and a bucket full of bread slices. With it we had a bottle of Vittel water, a glass of white wine for me and for my wife a 'café allongé ', which was from the almost hundred years old roastery Café Negro in Bayonne. For the wine was written on the bill: Irouleguy Jurançon. This refers to two very different wine growing areas, but both the nearest to Espelette. The Irouleguy wines are the only ones grown in the Pays Basque, while the about four times larger wine growing area of Jurançon is to be found in Béarn.