RESTAURANT XAYA

We had a great meal tonight at Xaya! The staff was very helpful in explaining each dish to us. And the wine pairings were fantastic. The chef did a great job with the flavors and the presentation. The staff was very thoughtful with our walnut allergy and made sure we were comfortable with the selections . Even our teenage kids enjoyed most of the dishes!

We opted for the 5 course degustation menu and it was excellent! High quality tastings, 5 courses was perfect. Albg with the 5 courses there were several treats along the way. The duck was done beautifully rare with a forest berry reduction and truffle mousse, the white fish was with a mustard sauce, there was a tuna sashimi course, a cheese and greens course, and more… all of it was wonderful. The wine pairing complemented each course. The first wine was a Chardonnay… I’m not fond of Chardonnay but this was well balanced, the 2nd wine was really delicious. It was a Roussanne, Marsanne, white Genache, and Viognier blend; perfect with the fish. The duck and truffle mousse was paired with a 2014 Boudreaux that was fabulous & perfect with the duck, and the desert was so creative with many different distinct flavors complimenting each other with a natural fermented sparkling Muskat. It was a very fun experience. I highly recommend it.

I sat on the backroom which is rather cozy, especially in the chesterfield corner. The fish selection was very well cared for, which can be expected in St Jean de Luz (although it is not always the case, alas). As for the swordfish, unlike in the Mediterranean, it is rare to eat it on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. The chef has chosen to serve it half-cooked, personally I fear that this does not add anything to its flavor, Italian cooks for this type of fish surpass the Basques. Otherwise, the service was swift and friendly. I shall certainly return.

Everything was just so perfect for our little stop at this cute little French town! The 5 course tasting menu is highly recommended. All the dishes were excellent and way over the price of $49. The sweet bread was way over the top - so delicious and creatively prepared! YUM!

XAYA is an experience with a meal. They kindly seated me, a single, in the Africa Room. How can I say this, the XAYA experience makes you feel loved. The meal is a work of art, the flavors make you stop and think, what is this? This is delightful. It makes you live in the moment. The little details, the yellow flowers in the salad. The staff aim for you to enjoy, when you thank them you can see that they take pride in what they do.

Exceptional cooking, notably the beautifully presented octopus, tuna in fig leaf with pollen and red wine reduction (very cleverly proceeded by a small entremets of tuna and honey tartare to accustom the palate to the combination), and a brilliant Galician beef, also served with a little saussisson-style tartare. How this restaurant doesn't have a Michelin star is beyond me, when others in Pays Basque are far beneath the standard set at Xaya. The sole misstep, to our taste, was that the main desert choice was cream-heavy - a blueberry tart held in a delicate, crisp casing that was ready to wow with the intensity of the berries, but was overloaded with dulce de leche that clogged the palate just when it demanded refreshing. From the moment we tasted the amuse-bouches that kicked off the evening we knew the food was going to be out of this world, and excepting the heavy-handed cream dollop on the tart, it lived up to the promise of those first mouthfuls. By the end of the meal we were tiring, the high chairs proving uncomfortable over more than a 3 and half hour time span on a hot night in Biarritz (hence the low star rating for atmosphere). Service was impeccable, informative and friendly, and the speed with which dishes were presented was pitch perfect over the first three courses though slowed as the tables filled up with large parties. Nevertheless, it gave us space to digest and wouldn't have been an issue with the comfortable high-backed seating the majority of (low) tables enjoyed. One of our party was gluten and dairy free and the extent to which her dietary requirements were accommodated, and the invention with which alternatives were presented was sincerely appreciated, and impressive. From the small yet wide ranging wine list we selected a Priorat 'Iura' 2018 from the Atavus estate, a natural wine that showed great aromatic complexity and an excellent focus enlivened by a blend encompassing bone dry Pedro Ximinez. It combined magically with the tuna to further elevate both the dish and the wine.

Excellent dining experience, the staff was very friendly and knowledgeable and it is nicely decorated as well. We had the "Grand diner" with wine pairing, all the dishes and wine were exquisite. Highly recommended if you're looking for a fine dining experience in the area.

We booked this restaurant as a treat on our honeymoon. It didn't disappoint. The food was amazing, beautiful and delicious. We chose a taster menu and they were even kind enough to make a small alteration to it. Service was lovely. If I had one small point, the accompanying wine flight was a little mean and often only just arrived in time for the course. Looking back we should have ordered an apperif or something as you wait a while before your first course that gets an accompanying wine arrives.

A very beautiful experience, with refined cuisine, a cozy setting, and service that meets expectations. The menu was exceptional, featuring a delightful array of dishes, with both the meat and fish cooked to perfection, showcasing a masterful balance of flavors and techniques

For starters, very slow service which might have had to do with certain assumptions about Americans... But that remains to be seen. No matter what, there were some major issues here, starting with (and most importantly) the food. This place wants to be special and charges accordingly. Things are special only if they are actually carried out at or near perfection: imaginative, with the finest of ingredients, and executed to perfection. That's not what is happening here. We only had the three course meal, which it turns out was the right choice because I really didn't want any more of what they had to present. The first course, a "raviole" stuffed with ground meat, wasn't particularly imaginative. But far more problematically, the pasta had the consistency of cardboard. If you haven't figured out how to off ravioli pasta (it takes some experimentation and practice) then don't do it. It should be both delicate and elastic. Not doughy and hard. This was a big fail. The next dish was an even bigger fail. A "salt-cured" fish which had clearly been cured because it was starting to go bad. This fish was, in a word, and unmistakably, not fresh. It wasn't going off because of the cure. Rather, someone said to themselves, this fish is going bad, let's throw some salt on it, let it sit in the fridge an extra night, throw a few snappy ingredients around it (truffle) and nobody will notice. I noticed. Oh, and if you are going to cook fish with the skin on, the skin better be crunchy, not leathery and inedible. The accompanying root vegetables (so-called spring vegetables) didn't have anything to do with the dish, were again, unimaginatively prepared, and were overcooked. The citrus medley desert was fine if not particularly exciting. The wine list is good and I was very pleased with my choice which was excellent. But I never felt the love from the staff and I sure as heck didn't feel any love from the kitchen. In a word, I was deeply disappointing, though by now you would think I would know better.

An experience like no other. This is not just a restaurant, it is a very special group of people that have come together to make magic.