Mountains that carry our raison d'être
15/03/1998
We could have opened in a business park, but circumstances took us to the mountains and to an old dairy farm that was protected from the wind thanks to the mountains and to the old oak tree that presides over our land.
We know that we would not have become who we are if chance had taken us to another setting.
Our first steps at Mugaritz were transformational, and perhaps they have shaped us more than we know. The border that that we crossed multiple times a day as we moved between the towns of Errenteria and Astigarraga was a salient feature of our endeavour, and it gave us our name (muga means “border” in Basque). Whenever asked who we are, we identify with the border that we have straddled physically and metaphorically since our beginning.
Our daily work is undoubtedly influenced by watching the fog play over the mountains as it winds through the oak groves, caresses the woolly coats of the sheep and touches the frosted morning meadows. Whether we are holding meetings in the shade of our fig tree or reflecting under the hundred-year-old oak, the context influences us.