Louis' Basque Corner
Family-style Basque dinners on East 4th Street since 1967, and the place most people in Reno will tell you to try Picon Punch.
Northern Nevada was settled in part by Basque sheepherding families, and the boarding houses that fed them became restaurants. Louis' Basque Corner has been doing that on East 4th Street since Louis and Lorraine Erreguible opened it in 1967.
Dinner is family-style and set. You sit at a long table, often beside strangers, and courses arrive whether you ordered them or not — soup, salad, beans, a plate of something — before the main course you actually chose. The menu runs to oxtails, tripas callos, lamb chops, and shrimp and tongue Basquaise.
It is also where most people try a Picon Punch, the bittersweet brandy-floated drink that is effectively unavailable outside this corner of the American West. Order one. One.
Good for
- Eating something you genuinely cannot get outside northern Nevada, Boise or Bakersfield
- Picon Punch
- A long table and a large meal
Worth knowing first
- Do not eat beforehand. The courses that arrive unasked are a full meal on their own.
- Family-style means shared tables and set courses. It is not a place to order the way you would elsewhere.
- Hours change. Ring before you go — that goes for every independent restaurant in this city, which is why this page has one of them and not forty.
- Where
- 301 E 4th St, Reno, NV
- Neighborhood
- Downtown Reno
- Price band
- $$
- On site
- Basque · Family-style · Picon Punch · Since 1967