The cuisine of northern Spain has been building an international projection for decades that draws attention for its scale: although it is a small territory, it has influential restaurants, leading schools and a food industry that exports to more than 130 countries. This map also highlights a gastronomic group that functions as a global ambassador: Sagardi, founded by brothers Iñaki and Mikel López de Viñaspre, dedicated to spreading the traditional recipes and culinary culture of the Basque Country.
Argentina has not been left out of this expansion. In fact, Buenos Aires was the first city outside of Spain where the group opened a restaurant., 20 years ago, when Sagardi landed in San Telmo with the promise of faithfully reproducing the way of cooking from northern Spain. The Buenos Aires scene not only accompanied the phenomenon; It became particularly receptive to a cuisine that combines noble products, generations-old techniques and flavors of origin.
Fire and product
And how do you explain that such a small territory has achieved so much projection? Part of the answer lies in your daily life. In the Basque Country, cooking is not an elite job but a shared practice: at home, in gastronomic societies where friends meet to prepare and discuss recipes, and in pintxo bars that function as informal agoras. This framework created a demanding and educated public. Something that Iñaki López de Viñaspre sums up simply: “Everyone is a cook and, therefore, everyone is a critic.” That look, which combines affection, technique and culture, raised the bar for those who cook professionally.
That environment was also the breeding ground for the so-called New Basque Cuisine, the movement that began in the 70s that reinterpreted the traditional recipe book with modern procedures without losing identity. Young chefs traveled, studied abroad and returned to work on local products with a philosophy of creativity without betraying the bases. López de Viñaspre summarizes it like this: “At our table, you always know that you are in the Basque Country.”
The thing is that if something differentiates Basque cuisine, it is its link with memory. It is not just about transmitted recipes, but about a philosophy that orders how to cook and, above all, how the product is respected. “Basque cuisine has sauces such as pil pil or vizcaína, which accumulate centuries of creativity and know-how.. “You have to be very arrogant to think that in ten years of work you are going to generate something superior to all that knowledge transmitted,” says López de Viñaspre. In this logic, innovation does not start from breaking tradition, but from understanding it thoroughly.
A receptive territory
When the group decided to disembark in Buenos Airesthere was both a bet and a reading of the moment. López de Viñaspre traveled to the country 20 years ago and found a particular scenario: an enormous wealth of products and, at the same time, a gastronomic scene that did not fully express everything that the territory could offer. “I got the feeling that there was great potential in gastronomy, in the product, although at that time it was very wasted,” he recalls. That perception, combined with a well-traveled audience with Basque roots present thanks to the waves of immigration, gave them room to take risks without adapting the proposal.
The affinity became more evident with fire. Between the Argentine grill and the Basque steakhousehe explains, there are historical and technical connections that facilitated the meeting. Many of the young immigrants who worked in the pampas “were generally Hungarians, Poles and Basques” and maintained the custom of feeding themselves by roasting a calf every 15 days, as in their place of origin. The logic of the barbecue, then, was not a barrier but a bridge. “In both Argentine and Basque cuisine, we want the product to taste like real meat, to be clean, to have just that touch of grill and light smoke.” In a country where the ritual of meat is part of identity, that kinship undoubtedly functioned as a shared code.
And the local installation was not only sustained by cultural affinities, it also required patient work. Sagardi explains that this cuisine “is not easy to migrate,” because it needs specific ingredients and a level of traceability that does not always exist outside its territory. For this reason, for years they have been working with Argentine producers to replicate variety and quality, even bringing “seeds to plant here and with that to make our cuisine.” They describe it as a laborious and long-term process, necessary for the recipe book to arrive intact.
Moving forward, López de Viñaspre imagines a scenario in which this tradition continues to gain presence outside its territory. “Basque cuisine has to be in the great capitals of the world,” He maintains, convinced that its cultural and gastronomic value can dialogue with any table. In Buenos Aires, the opening of Berria this year adds one more option within that movement, but he thinks of it as part of something bigger: a cuisine that advances without haste, supported by technique, identity and a way of cooking that does not need artifices or trends to project itself into the future.
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