I was pretty excited when I heard that Urdaneta was bringing back an instance of Basque Supper Club with the theme of Txoko! Going to txokos with his grandfather had inspired Chef Javier Canteras to open Urdaneta and create Basque Supper Club. Now it was coming around full circle as the documentary ”The Txoko Experience: The Secret Culinary Space of the Basques”, along with scriptwriter, Marcela Garces, was making a West Coast premiere showing at Urdaneta. The restaurant was closed for this private event on a Sunday evening, and the night included watching the movie in the restaurant, and then enjoying a multi course dinner of Basque cuisine. Here’s a look at my Txoko Experience with Urdaneta.
Txoko (The “Tx” in Basque language is pronounced Ch, Cho-ko, with ch hard like the ch in in chocolate), is essentially a dining club that allows members to gather together in a space (often a restaurant kitchen and dining area) and cook and dine together outside their home, which are often apartments.
It’s more then just food though- the txoko is an escape from family to be with the community that only sees what you are good at cooking (or maybe you’re a good singer), regardless of what you do for your day job. It’s an environment of good food, good conversation, and apparently, also group singing. We didn’t sing at this dinner, but there was definitely the wonderful food and conversation and everyone attending and working was in excited, cheerful spirits.
