Michelin Star Restaurants in Rioja: Wine Country Dining in Northern Spain
Rioja is known for its wines, Spain’s answer to Bordeaux’s classicism and grandeur, long-lived and lordly. But the region’s wealth doesn’t end there. The food scene that has sprung up to accompany the fine wine is no less complex or excellent.
It should come as no surprise that Rioja has become a fine-dining destination. The Basque Country’s cities, global capitals of creativity in the kitchen, lie a short drive to the north of the heart of Riojan wine country. The Basque Country even extends its toe into the region; the historic Rioja Alavesa subregion is part of the Basque Country. Thus the precise technique and innovative vision that has come to define the new Basque cuisine extends to the tables of Rioja. Traditional Rioja cuisine itself is deeply influenced by those northern neighbors.
See our Rioja Trip: Classic Estates & Creative Growers: The Wines of Rioja Trip
Rioja Cuisine and Michelin Stars
It’s the local terroir of the Rioja that has propelled the finest chefs of the region to stardom. The Ebro River Valley is not just a fine place to make wine, but also home to excellent produce, meat, and game. Nearby Navarra is famed throughout Spain for its vegetables, and Rioja shares much of this strength. Depending on the season, it could be wild mushrooms or fresh artichokes or delicate white asparagus. Local lamb shines at traditional grillhouses and in creative dishes. And the modern era brings the wealth of the Basque coast together with Rioja’s indigenous ingredients making for a complete culinary package.
In retrospect it seems obvious that fine wine should produce fine dining to accompany it, but in Spain this isn’t often true. The traditional cuisines of Spain’s wine regions do tend to provide good company for the local wines, but the most superlative use of the wines is often found in the dining rooms of cities like Madrid, Barcelona, or even London and New York, rather than in wine country. Rioja’s own wines were long put to their best use in urban restaurants, particularly those of Bilbao and San Sebastián. But today perhaps the best place to enjoy fine dining with Rioja wine is in the heart of wine country itself.
There are two restaurants in the Rioja that are synonymous with the development of the modern face of the region’s cuisine: Venta Moncalvillo and El Portal de Echaurren. Both are far off the beaten track, distilling the flavors of the countryside into impeccable tasting menus that surprise and enchant.
Venta Moncalvillo (1 Michelin star)
Venta Moncalvillo is a real destination restaurant in the tiniest of villages. Daroca de Rioja, hometown of the Echapresto brothers who run the restaurant, is little more than a few houses grouped together and surrounded by the patchwork fields that define the southern half of Rioja, more pasture and wheat than vine or olive. The impetus for the restaurant was to remain in this idyllic corner of Rioja and the love of the local shines through in their energy and passion for terroir of ingredients and wine. But the interpretation of the table and the glass at Venta Moncalvillo is transcendental and surprising.
The restaurant occupies an old farmhouse, converted into a vision of peace and elegance. The rustic setting melts away into a space of reverance for product, like a temple to the gifts of the earth. Each plate feels like a meditation on a small slice of the land. Technique and innovation here serve not as sophistry, but to pursue a synthesis that is more local, more seasonal, more timeless than its constituents. The platonic ideal of terroir. The tasting menus at Venta Moncalvillo seem to take you deeper into the land with each plate. A moment in time, one day of one week of one season expressed and immortalized for the eyes and the palate to remember.
It’s no coincidence that the most important part of Venta Moncalvillo is not the dining room, the kitchen, or the wine cellar. It’s the garden. Behind the restaurant, the brothers grow everything that they can, from peppers and tomatoes to fruits and nuts. The garden is impossibly neat, equally suited for a Zen retreat as for growing food. You can easily imagine chef Ignacio Echapresto walking the paths here to create new dishes. Listening to what the season and soil have to say seems to be at the heart of the restaurant’s genius.
Fine dining in Rioja of all places is inseparable from fine wine, and Venta Moncalvillo is no exception. Sommelier Carlos Echapresto maintains a deep cellar featuring exciting selections from Rioja alongside special wines from around Spain and the world. With menus that express pure and concentrated flavors of the land, the sommelier’s job is difficult but rewarding. Venta Moncalvillo is a place to leave yourself in capable hands for wine selection. One plate might pair perfectly with a classic Riojan gran reserva, but another might need a sparkling wine or a sherry to really shine. Each glass is treated with as much reverance as the dish itself, making this one of Spain’s great wine experiences as well as one of its most unique meals.
El Portal de Echaurren (2 Michelin stars)
The holder of the most Michelin stars of any Rioja restaurant lies in the tiny mountainside village of Ezcaray, known for its ski resort, alpine atmosphere, and photogenic colorful wool blankets. To lovers of good food and wine, however, Ezcaray is known for Echaurren, a single building that holds a boutique hotel and two of Rioja’s most important restaurants. The first, Echaurren Tradición, serves elegant versions of traditional Riojan cuisine in a cozy dining room. The second is El Portal de Echaurren, where the potential of the region’s food is taken beyond the limits of imagination.
The experience at El Portal starts upstairs, in a room with modern yet comforting decor and views of the local monastery. Nothing is random here, for the fusion of modern and historic is the very heart of Echaurren’s philosophy. You’ll have surprising appetizers here while preparing for takeoff on chef Francis Paniego’s friendly spaceship of a tasting menu. Each bite and sip is pure, elegant, eternal. Afterwards, you head downstairs, through the bar where locals and visitors enjoy welcome sun, to the restaurant.
The menu at El Portal changes but the philosophy behind it is permanent. One foot in the past, one in the future. You might taste a careful, faithful preparation of a Spanish classic followed by a work of pure creativity. Running through is a deep love of the local ingredients of Rioja and the area around Ezcaray, where sheep have been brought to pasture for generations and the mountains of southern Rioja begin in earnest. Despite the stars, El Portal is incredibly comfortable. The staff are warm, and the cuisine is superb, creative without pushing it too far. And perhaps this is the identity of Riojan fine dining. While chefs in San Sebastián are reinventing the very meaning of a meal, in Rioja technique and elegance and presentation serve to accentuate terroir, not hide it.