One year after opening, the city’s buzziest steakhouse is still charging ahead at full speed. Etxe, the Basque steakhouse located in Walnut Hills, has big plans for both the present and future.
Co-owners David Matern and Heather Brady originally launched the restaurant as a “culinary residency” inside the space at 900 E McMillan St. that was once home to The Aperture — the award-winning restaurant led by chef Jordan Anthony-Brown.
Pronounced ‘et-chay,’ the name means ‘home’ in the Basque language, reflecting both the Spanish region the food takes inspiration from and the family-style meals served up at the steakhouse. The restaurant has drawn critical acclaim all over the city for its txuleta steaks, incredible wine menu and authentic Spanish dishes, like the champiñones a la plancha — seared wild mushrooms served with brown butter, an egg yolk and foie gras.
In May, Brady and Matern announced they’d found a permanent home for Etxe less than a mile away, around the same time as The Aperture closed down for good. Long story short, they ended up taking over the lease and until construction finishes in about a year, they’re staying put.
“We call our current location ‘Little Etxe,’ cause we’re still building the kitchen,” Brady said, laughing. “We’ve done some redecorating from when it was The Aperture … We want it to feel like we’re welcoming everyone into our home… our main goal is to show appreciation to the Basque region and Spain as a whole, and for guests to taste in every bite the passion that David and the kitchen team have in cooking this kind of food.”
Part of that mission is the restaurant’s expanded hours — five days a week, Thursday through Monday. Another part is the new fall menu.
An item Brady is in love with the new merluza al pil pil, a traditional Basque dish which features eight ounces of hake fish in an olive oil, garlic, pepper and clam-based sauce alongside spinach and leeks. Another new option is their parrillada mixta (which quite literally means ‘mixed grill’) that features a smaller portion of all three of their major meat items — ibérico pluma, lamb chops and prime filet — so guests don’t “have to commit to 16 ounces of pork, or a half rack of lamb, or a 20 ounce steak,” Brady said.
All the fan-favorite dishes remain, including the Basque cheesecake. It’s a dish so popular among customers that someone once told the staff they “found God in this cheesecake tonight.”
Another program that continues to expand is the restaurant’s special wine dinners, which often feature collaborations with wineries that the two are hoping to spotlight. One upcoming dinner is in partnership with the winery Chosen Family, whose owners you may recognize. Channing Frye and Kevin Love, who were NBA champions on the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, started a winery together after their title win. On November 19, Frye will be pouring wine at Etxe as part of a five-course dinner event.
“Channing is launching a sparkling Chardonnay in Ohio, and he texted me asking if we had space on our menu for the wine,” Brady said. “We don’t, because we have a 100% Iberian wine list. But I love the ethos of Chosen Family. It’s the same as what Etxe really means, like, finding your family and enjoying meals and great wine with them.”
Over the next year, construction will continue on their permanent home in the Woodburn Exchange development — or “Big Etxe,” as Brady called it. The new restaurant will feature a completely open kitchen alongside a circular bar in the center and a 24-seat private dining room hidden behind a wall of temperature-controlled wine. In addition, there will be a 40-seat patio with seasonal enclosures and heating so the space can be utilized year-round. For now though, the focus is still on high-quality food and wine from the Basque region of Spain, which famously uses minimal herbs and spices to let the main ingredients of the dish shine.
“It’s a cuisine that you’ll never experience anywhere else in Cincinnati,” Matern said. “And it’s honest food. Simple ingredients prepared really, really well. There’s a sort of a reverence and really, you know, a respect for the culture … it’s like if I was a carpenter. You can make a chair out of four pieces of wood and sit on it, or you can make this really beautiful thing by just putting a little bit of extra time into it with those same four pieces of wood. That’s what we’re doing.”
For more information on Etxe, including reservations and info on their upcoming wine dinners, visit the restaurant’s website.
