Q&A: Chef Eneko Atxa of Azurmendi

"It started around my family's dining table when I was young, although none of my family are professional chefs. My mother and grandmother cook with a lot of passion and a lot of love. When I was a kid, we would make croquetas and dessert together. So when I got to choose my career, I went for something that would give me pleasure."

"To [describe] my cooking style, I'd have to explain the story [of my life]. When and where I was born, what my family is like, my landscape, my studies: a mix of all these influences my cooking. I'm privileged to be living in the Basque country because it is close to the sea and the mountains, and we have a long queue of producers and suppliers. We have interesting traditional recipes and I love innovating. We have all the advantages to create special local dishes with a lot of personality."

"It's a gastronomic restaurant on a hillside, where we grow our own wine grapes. Just above the restaurant we have a vegetable garden and a greenhouse where we grow all our own produce. When guests arrive, they're taken on a little journey led by a chef to the garden upstairs, which they can walk through and find little bits to eat before a few canapés are served in the greenhouse. They can see and understand what our menu is trying to achieve with sustainability. They're then led back downstairs to an indoor garden hallway with many plants where they have a sophisticated but casual and fun picnic. They will then have a tour of the kitchen before they sit down in the dining room."

"We [Azurmendi] were awarded the most sustainable restaurant in the world because the building is very modern and the concept very sustainable. For instance, we use geothermal techniques and collect rain water. You can arrive in an electric car and we offer charging facilities. It's very modern but, at the same time, very integrated into the landscape."

"It depends on the season. For example, now it's spring and we have beautiful peas and special local mushrooms. The peas are tear-drop peas, which come in the pod. They're very small and sweet. We collect them before sunrise every day because this way all the sugar is retained in the peas. The explosion [in the mouth] is very nice. When the produce is that incredible, I don't have to do much. We put it in water for 10 seconds and serve it with ham jelly and natural pea flowers, which have a delicate flavour and taste like peas. [The dish] has all the different textures: crunchy peas, smooth jelly and velvety flowers."

"It opened in December and is located on Natai Beach, north of Phuket, where the natural landscape gives us a lot of inspiration. It shares the same Basque philosophy but we try to adapt our recipes with local ingredients - we try to utilise as much local produce as possible because we're in a fantastic area with great local seafood and vegetables."