Kitoko

Kitoko opened in Petit Bayonne in 2019 and has quickly become one of the most current bistros in the city. The room is small — fewer than thirty covers, an open kitchen at the back, an exposed-stone wall and a long counter facing the chef — and the format is a daily-changing set menu plus a short à la carte.

The cooking is modern French with Basque accents — the chef trained at Le Cinq in Paris before returning home — and the menu reads short for a reason. Three or four starters, three or four mains, a single dessert. Aged duck breast with Espelette and stone fruit; line-caught hake with txakoli butter; whatever vegetable the kitchen got from the market that morning treated as a course in its own right.

The wine list is mostly natural and unusually thoughtful for a small bistro — French biodynamic producers, a clutch of orange wines from Jura and Slovenia, and an honest Basque section. The sommelier is happy to recommend by the glass.

For a solo dinner at the counter, a first date that should feel modern and Basque, or a quiet contract conversation that needs a room without ceremony, Kitoko delivers exactly the right register.

The counter facing the open kitchen is one of the most welcoming places in Bayonne for a solo diner. The pace is unhurried, the chef is happy to recommend, and the by-the-glass wine programme is honest.