Porc Kintoa

Each week in its own workshops, the company prepares hams, saucissons, and pork charcuterie, and cooks traditional Basque recipes. It selects produce from neighbouring farmers — local pigs, calves from the Vallée des Aldudes, Pyrenean lambs — and offers for sale other culinary treasures of the PDO (AOP) terroir (Ossau-Iraty cheese, Irouléguy wine, piment d'Espelette), alongside its own PDO Kintoa ham and pork. A guided tour is offered, featuring Basque pig farming and an educational gallery dedicated to ham, followed by a tasting. For over 30 years, the company has also organised buffets, cocktail receptions, and trade shows.

In Ainhoa, barely a kilometre from the village fronton, Didier Testemale and Sylvie Leizagoyen settled on family land following a career change into agriculture. The project began in 2016 centred around piment d'Espelette PDO (AOP), with an initial season of 12,500 plants that earned them, the very next year, the silver medal at the Salon de l'Agriculture de Paris. To make the most of the forest surrounding their farm, Uronakoborda, they diversified their activities in February 2017 by branching out into rearing porc basque Kintoa, the local black-pied breed, one of the oldest in Europe.

The pigs live outdoors in nine hectares of forest from the age of three months, for at least a year. On the farm, they are processed into ham, saucisson, pâté, chichon, boudin or herb-cured fatback — jambon Kintoa, aged for at least twenty months, comes whole on the bone, rindless and vacuum-packed, or sliced. The piment d'Espelette is processed entirely on site, from seed to powder, and is also used in derivative products — jelly, mustard, coulis. Visits are by appointment, in French or Basque, with direct sales also available; the products are also sold by a few retailers in the Pays basque, including Maison Arostéguy in Biarritz.

Located in the heart of the village of Sare, Maison Arka is an artisanal charcuterie workshop combined with a shop and a gourmet bistro. The establishment is run by a couple, Marianne and Tristan, artisan charcutiers by trade, who opened the shop and bistro alongside their production workshop.

Preserves, cured meats and jambon de Kintoa PDO (AOP) are prepared in-house in keeping with tradition, without nitrite salt or preservatives. The house also offers a small selection of local produce — wines, beers, gravlax trout and small sablé biscuits. The bistro serves a charcuterie platter and a gourmet menu accompanied by a wine list, to be enjoyed on a covered terrace overlooking the Rhune.