Behind the luxurious Hôtel du Palais, an alleyway descends towards Miramar beach. Right in the center of Biarritz, a stone’s throw from the Grande Plage, this small bay surmounted by the lighthouse is known to locals who come to be whipped by the rush of the waves at rising tide.
At the end of the afternoon, the water rises inexorably, grabbing centimeter after centimeter on the beach attendants’ towels softened by the heat. It’s time to take the plunge. The foam that tickles the toes gets the message across quite effectively. The current mows down your ankles when the water recedes and rises again to create rolls that apprentice surfers have fun taming with their boards. A few children scream, caught in the whirlwind of this giant washing machine, from which escape laughter, cries and momentary panic.
After a few fathoms, the return to the beach is much more invigorating than the outward journey. It felt like running a marathon. A craving for thunder wakes up and sharpens the senses. Here, a small white hut stamped “Agour” advertises homemade ice cream. It will always be better than the Basque donuts sold by the brave young man who has been criss-crossing the beach since noon with his basket.
World champions
The waitress has the golden complexion of early summer. She chats with the beach lifeguards, whose sunscreen-slathered faces give an accurate idea of the amount of sunshine since the start of the season. After a last joke, the young woman returns to the kiosk, wears a smile and a professional speech. Maison Agour began as a respectable cheese dairy in the Basque Country forty years ago. She won the world cheese championship in 2011, the year during which she also set up a collection of ice creams made from sheep’s milk, a real innovation at the time.
Gérard Taurin, Meilleur Ouvrier de France and also world champion in ice cream parlors, brought his touch to pass on what was dear to the Etxeleku family since 1981: honoring Basque culture and products. The choice is not long in coming. It will be hazelnut and chocolate from Bayonne, since history, the great one, wants the first French chocolate factory to have opened in Bayonne, in 1729.
After the quarter-hour culture comes the quarter-hour tasting, feet in the sand facing the Roche Ronde, a magnificent pebble planted in the ocean, which is tackled by the spray. The very sweet and creamy hazelnut ice cream gives the chocolate a patina, more sour, because it lets the nature of the sheep’s milk shine through. The water rises on the beach at the rate of the melting of the ice, causing a sense of urgency that pushes to devour the cone without asking any further questions and to jump into the water one last time before the pareos are completely submerged under the waves.
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