Karlos Arguiñano
Spanish chef, television presenter, writer and businessman
Biography
Karlos Arguiñano Urkiola (born in Beasáin, Gipuzkoa, on 6 September 1948) is a Spanish chef, television presenter, writer and businessman. He is one of the best-known figures of home cooking in Spain and one of the Basque cooks who helped renew the region's gastronomy in the late 1970s. His career joins restaurant kitchens with television, and that combination made him a reference for several generations of food lovers.
He is the eldest of four siblings, the son of Jesús Arguiñano, a taxi driver, and Pepi Urkiola, a dressmaker. As a child he showed an early interest in cooking, and by about the age of seven he was already helping his mother in the kitchen at home. His father's family came from Morentin in Navarre, and that province remained an important connection for him, although he grew up in Gipuzkoa and has lived for much of his life in the coastal town of Zarautz. He attended primary school with the Benedictines in Lazcano and later trained in industrial technical studies. He worked as a metal fitter at the CAF railway factory in Beasáin, a job he left, by his own account in an interview, after a remark from a colleague about the doors of the train carriages.
His culinary training began at sixteen, with cooking classes at the Castillo inn in Beasáin. A year later he enrolled for three years at the hospitality school of the Hotel Euromar in Zarautz, directed by Luis Irizar. There he met fellow students who would become prominent names in Basque cuisine, including Pedro Subijana, Enrique San José and Ramón Roteta, and he formed lasting friendships. Between 1968 and 1970 he worked in the kitchens of the Londres and María Cristina hotels in San Sebastián. He later ran a café in Zarautz and, for nine years, directed the kitchens of the Real Golf Club in the same town.
During the 1970s he was among the cooks who, alongside Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana and others, helped shape what became known as Nueva Cocina Vasca, a movement that placed local produce and refined technique at the centre of Basque cooking. On 13 July 1979 he opened a hotel-restaurant in Zarautz, set in a castle built of rough stone, which became his professional base. In 1982 the restaurant was awarded a Michelin star, which it kept until 1998. In 1990 he enlarged the establishment with a four-star hotel, and in October 1996 he opened the Aiala hospitality school in the same town.
Television marked the second major stage of his career. He made his debut on Basque television in 1989 with Hamalau Euskal Sukaldari, and the following year moved to ETB2 with El menú del día. In September 1991 he joined RTVE to present El menú de cada día from Telenorte, and in March 1992 the programme reached La 1 and TVE Internacional. His style, a mix of simple recipes, practical tips, jokes and songs, brought him wide popularity. In 1992 Teleprograma magazine named him its Personality of the Year, and in 1993 he received the Premio Ondas for national programmes. After leaving TVE in 1996 he worked between Argentina and Spain, presented shows on Telecinco and ETB1, and returned to La 2 and La 1 in 2002. The 2004 dispute between TVE and Telecinco over the broadcasting of his programmes, which reached the courts, is one of the best-known episodes of his television years. In 2010 he moved to Antena 3, where he still presents.
Beyond television, he has published many books on easy home cooking, most of them through his company Bainet, which produces both his programmes and his books. The company also publishes works by other figures of Basque gastronomy, and he has released recipe books with Editorial Planeta. Since 2005 he has owned Bodega K5 in Aya, in Gipuzkoa, with more than fifteen hectares of hondarrabi zuri, a white grape native to the Basque Country. Between 2011 and 2017 he also ran a team in the motorcycle world championship, a passion for motor sport that closed for financial reasons. As an occasional actor, he appeared in films such as Airbag, directed by Juanma Bajo Ulloa, Año mariano and El rey de la granja, and his filmography also lists the documentary Un tal Karlos (2026).
Today he continues to present Cocina abierta de Karlos Arguiñano on Antena 3 from Monday to Thursday, while his son Joseba presents the Friday programme. His Zarautz restaurant remains a reference for Basque cooking, and his name is linked both to the refined cuisine of the 1970s and to the home cooking he has promoted on television. His legacy lies in bringing Basque and Spanish cooking to a wide audience without giving up technique, and in showing that culinary education on screen can be entertaining and rigorous at once.
Key contributions
- Nueva Cocina Vasca: took part in the group that, in the late 1970s, renewed Basque cooking around local produce and technique.
- Hotel-restaurant in Zarautz: its stone castle, which held a Michelin star between 1982 and 1998, remains a reference for the area's cuisine.
- Cocina abierta de Karlos Arguiñano: a television programme, under various titles since 1990, that popularised simple home cooking across Spain.
- Aiala Hospitality School: opened in Zarautz in 1996, training new generations of cooking professionals.
- Easy home cooking books: works aimed at domestic cooks, largely published through Bainet.
- Bodega K5: in Aya, with vineyards of hondarrabi zuri, a native Basque white grape that he has championed since 2005.