Etxebarri

Cloaked in smoke. Revered for its authenticity. Famed for it’s charcoal scented beef. Etxebarri is ahead of its time. And wonderfully behind the times. Wedged in the mountains above Bilboa it’s a beacon of gastronomy in a village where time doesn’t just stand still, but runs still.

It’s hard to describe how beautiful the setting is. This photo gives you a glimpse. But doesn’t do it justice. Having driven through the industrialised valleys out of Bilboa, the hills around Etxebarri are an Elysian Alpine Meadow of dramatic and humbling views.

Etxebarri has been at the top of our list for years. Sure, we’ve wanted to eat at other fancy restaurants, but this is different. It’s iconic. It’s a one of a kind. Smokey. Authentic. Victor Arguinzoniz runs it with exquisite skill and startling affinity to the ingredients from the area and taste. Whilst other smart, progressive restaurants are all exciting, it’s Etxebarri that has stood above - wooing us via sending smoke signals.

Much like eating at El Bulli – this was a seminal experience. With each course building on the last. Sure, there were a couple of courses which weren’t as exciting, but the majority were immense. Here are the highlights.

Freshly made, rare (almost raw) smoked chorizo was one of the very best things I’ve ever eaten. It is also probably the least pregnancy friendly thing you’ll ever come across – apart from maybe sushi from xxxx. It had the soft texture of beef tartar. But with layers of smoky sweetness and a punch of chilli. It would make for an excellent starter for your final meal on death row.

Wild mushrooms with artichoke hearts was another smoky delight. Lighter in flavour and texture than the chorizo, it had an earthy, woody sweetness that was offset by a very fresh vinaigrette. I had been expecting bit hits of smoke, but the smoke was used far more subtly as a flavour enhancer.

A single oyster, smoked and re-housed back inside its shell was sublime. I can imagine it would have been easy to have lost the texture of the oyster – for it to have been turned into mush. But no. It was delicious.

Then came another highlight. Two enormous prawns. Wow. This was massive. The flavour smashed like an Evander Holyfield punch and kept on hitting. And biting. And nibbling. Messy. My heart missed a few beats. And my breath quickened. These enormous, juicy prawns had been given the best send off you can possibly imagine. Biting into the heads was like creating your own crab bisque. But better. I can taste it all now, just writing about it. It’s worth the price of the menu on its own. And the airfare. And the car hire too. I love that they weren’t messed around with. No dipping sauce. No lemon. No herbs. No garnish. Just. Two. Perfect. Prawns. Cooked over coals.

Tiny octopus were served with a slick of their own ink and a sweet and sour chutney. If it hadn’t been for the prawns I’d be waxing hysterically lyrical about them. Again, the smoke was subtle, but there. Giving them an ethereal tang that enhanced their natural flavour.

Scrambled egg with black truffles was another heart racer. It reminded me of a meal in Croatia where I ate so many truffles on a steak that I had to be pushed up a hill by Cowie back to our hotel. The truffles had that petrol like power that makes you appreciate that you are eating the very best. The egg was warm. Liquid. And hilariously un-PC for Cowie’s pregnant state! Sorry Zennor.

 

A wedge of salt cod came next – glistening with its own juices, like a glacier trickling away in the spring sun. I’ve been trying to instill a love for salt cod into Cowie for quite some time, but to no effect, but this dish was a revelation. A bacaloa epiphany. Soft, yielding, silky and moist – it was perfect. And the red pepper sauce a cracking counterfoil.

And then. The big show. The main event. The beef. Iconic. Beautifully caremelised over coals. Stunningly rare. But still warm and juicy. With all the fat rendered. Each mouthful seemed to get better. The firm flesh was almost waxy in texture, but with a flavour that tasted intensely beefy. Perfectly seasoned. It’s interesting to only be served protein and no vegetables or sauces. The beef is allowed so moo for itself. The beasts are 7 year old dairy cows – which is very unusual. But it works. There’s something brilliantly primeval about this dish. So uncomplicated. So reductive. It’s a journey back in time to the first time humans ever ate meat.

A beetroot sorbet with freshly made buffalo milk ice cream was a fitting finish. The sweet earthy notes of the beetroot balancing out the sharp freshness of the ice cream.

Interestingly, it was the discovery of fire and cooking meat over coals, that led to humans evolving far bigger brains. You could almost taste this sociology lesson on the plate. Eating is about experiences. And this experience, for me, had deep cultural significance. This trend away from molecular gastronomy towards a more authentic, primeval form of cooking is worth keeping an eye on. And as much as I loved all the fun of gels, foams and spheres, there’s something deep and life affirming about the experience and philosophy of Etxebarri.

We loved Etxebarri. We’d love to go back. And we’d love to explore the valleys and mountains further as well. On our 40 minute drive back to Bilboa airport I couldn’t help wondering whether there were any English speaking ad agencies in the area who needed a planner! It’s such a beautiful part of the world that we can’t wait to return to. Isn’t it nice when a dream turns out to be real?

Gourmet Stag Weekend in San Sebastian

Food normally plays second or third fiddle on a stag weekend. The closest you normally come to nutrition is from your toothpaste or morning ration of paracetamol. I normally arrive home on a Sunday night with the cravings of a pregnant slug – lettuce and courgettes please. And maybe a radish on the side.

So when Tom and Danny cooked up a trip to San Sebastian as a stag do, things looked up. Tom is a Donostia veteran, so had a very strong sense of where to go and what to eat. The closest we came to a burger or kebab was a particularly decadent sea urchin!

Others have written about the pintxos of San Sebastian far more comprehensively than I can. And in fact this blog post from The LondonFoodie actually covers a decent proportion of the places we visited. But here is an overview of my highlights. A series of pintxos postcards if you will.

La Cuchara de San Telmo

We started at La Cuchara de San Telmo – which is comfortably my favourite pintxos haunt. Traditional, but imaginative, their food has a depth of flavour and quality of cooking that would grace any starred restaurant. And all served up from a kitchen the size of a downstairs loo. Just don’t try to go on a Monday. It’s shut.

Veal Cheeks

Our pintxos crawl started with a strong dose of Txakoli and large ration of decadent veal cheeks – which had been cooked in red wine and placed on a bed of creamy puree. Unctuous isn’t a word I use very often, but these cheeks should take the place of the definition of this word in the OED. Deep and decadent; they are the sine qua nom nom nom for how to make the most out of veal cheeks.

Pigs Trotters

San Telmo is famous for their trotters. If they were any richer they’d be a Knightsbridge tax exile with a bastard son called Hubertus. Succulent doesn’t do them justice. There isn’t much “meat” per se. But the pickings you get are piggy bliss. The sherry vinegar glaze does its best to cut through the richness. But only some industrial strength hydrochloric acid could manage that. In fairness the Txakoli did a fair job in the place of the HCl.

Salt Cod

Salt cod seems to rear its caudal fin at every turn in San Sebastian. Here it flaked beautifully to reveal its pearly interior. The pepper puree was a perfect counterfoil and was possibly the only vegetable we came across for several hours of eating.

Scallops with Ham Fat

Scallops and salty pork are a well known match. But here they got taken to another level. The ham fat had little slivers of meat attached to it. But let’s be honest, it was there to act as a fatty cummerbund to the pristine white scallops. The only criticism is that it would be nice to crisp up the fat more. But I wouldn’t take that complaint terribly seriously.

Bar Zeruko

Zeruko is one of San Sebastian’s molecular pintxos bars. Spherification, table theatre and whimsy pick up where San Telmo’s depth of flavour and traditional cooking left off. And it is great fun. But some of the dishes could have been cooked more sensitively.

Ceps and Egg

Large slices of cep with a fried egg. Simple. And almost stunning. It just had a slightly acrid taste that you can get when something has caught slightly in the pan or on the plancha.

Smoke Your Own Cod

This was a lot of fun. You get presented with a miniature smoker with a piece of cod in bamboo tweezers which you then smoke until your heart is contented. All washed down with a green straw filled with a shot of herby goodness. This was one of our favourite dishes.

Sea Urchin

Rich. Decadent. And deeply sexual. This sea urchin didn’t take any prisoners. Enriched with béchamel and dressed with a herb oil, it redefined the word intensity. Put it this way; it tasted of how I image a brothel to smell.

Hake Throat

Or at least I think it was hake throat. Apparently it is a delicacy. Here it was served with foie gras and a film of caramel to add to the playful decadence.

Salt Cod with Fish Roe

Layers upon layers of salt cod with a cheeky topping of caviar and a dressing of balsamic vinegar sent us on our heady way from Zeruko smelling slightly of our own mini smoker.

Hidalgo 56

Tripe

Tom insisted on us tucking into some tripe. I gallantly attempted to help. But I’ve got to admit, I find tripe a bit too ripe for my boring taste buds. Tom insists this is amongst the best tripe he’s had. And I can attest to the fact that it really does taste very authentically of cow stomach. Although which of the cow’s four stomachs I’m not so sure.

Chanterelles with Scrambled Egg

Where I struggled with the tripe, I fell in love with the chanterelles and scrambled eggs. There’s nothing complicated about this dish. But it is sensational. Seasoned majestically. And scattered with parsley, it’s found its way into my psyche as my favourite mushroom dish of the year so far.

After the rest of the stag do went home, Sarah came out for a couple of days to experience the delights of the Basque country. And whilst it isn’t terribly pregnancy friendly, we adored it. We stayed at Hotel de Londres y de Inglaterra which is perfectly positioned on the promenade, overlooking the cacophonous waves that smash the shoreline in perfect concentric surges of water. 

As views go, they don’t get a lot better than this one from our hotel.

Taberna Gandarias

If you are struggling for somewhere to eat on a Monday – because quite a few of the pintxos bars close their doors then – Gandarias is a good option. It is both a pintxos bar and restaurant. And is one of my favourites. We drank gallons of exceptional wine and sherry here whilst on the stag, but focused more on the food when it was just the two of us.

Sirloin with green peppers

The juicy, pink, sweet steak was offset perfectly by the sweet bitterness of the green pepper and its salty anorak. I’m keen to scale this up to a full size dish once the summer arrives.

Squid with its Own Ink

Few things taste as good as super fresh squid cooked quickly. This was fabulous. And the inky sauce gave it loads of depth whilst making us look like our teeth were about to fall out.

Fake Elvers on Toast

Sadly not real elvers. But probably good for the environment. These little squiggly worms were delicious. And super garlicky.

Octopus with Paprika

Simple. Just slices of cold octopus with paprika, olive oil and seasoning. I’m not sure you could eat this and not realize what country you are in.

La Cepa

La Cepa is to be found very close to San Telmo. Whilst I am sure their pintxos are good, it’s the jamon that we fell in love with. Nutty. Unctuous. Piggy. And with a mineral depth, it is now the ham I judge others against. It’s almost worth the airfare alone. And the beer taps are made from pig legs which is pretty cool.

La Vina

I’m very embarrassed to say that we visited the mecca for Spanish cheesecake and didn’t try any. I haven’t really got an excuse. So forgive me. But here’s a photo of the best cheesecake I’ve ever seen – and not eaten. I am currently craving this cheesecake and a glass of PX sherry.

This is just a taster of a city I simply cannot wait to return to. It’s such a civilised, cultured, delicious place that has its priorities straight. Thank you Tom for organizing such a marvelous stag do. And well done Dan for being such a good egg. Let’s hope you call your first child Sebastian.

El Bulli

"If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy;" (Othello)

I overheard a fellow foodie at work called James talking about his trip last year to El Bulli. He'd scoured the Egullet forums until he picked up enought clues to have a pop at booking a table. He deduced, having translated lots of "chatter" in Spanish that the best time to contact them was in the middle of October. Apparently this is when they take all of their bookings for the year. For every table 400 people desperately try to get in. The chances are very slim.

Thanks to James' success last year I took his advice and sent El Bulli a very nice email asking for a table for 2 on my birthday. Weeks passed. Maybe even a month. And then I got the best email of my entire life asking if a table at 8pm on April 6th would suit us! Sweet Jesus! A table at 10am for dinner would suit us!

When the sheer excitement and level of luck had sunk in we went about working out what to do either side of dinner! From what we had heard El Bulli was near Barcelona. Well it turns out that this was about as accurate as saying Birmingham is near London. So we booked an appartment in Roses with a legend called Wolf for 3 nights and decided to spend a further 2 nights in Barca itself.

Wolf turned out to be a very eccentric Germnan gentleman with one of the best located apartment building ever. If he had a few quid to spend on it he could turn it into an incredible Hip Hotels calibre boutique hotel. Given that he probably spends all of his pennies on sun cream, speedos and white paint I don't think this will happen any time soon.

To get an idea of the stunning view from our mamouth terrace have a look at this.



And here's the view once the sun has set.



The downside to the low cost of our appartment was a camp bed propped up against the French windows and a less than luxurious bathroom.



But what the hell, we had the best view you could possibly imagine from our bed! And we needed to save all of our pennies for the most expensive dinner you can imagine!

We drove from Roses to El Bulli the day before hand to do a reccie. We were so lucky with the weather which treated us like Gods for our entire stay. El Bulli is tucked away in the nook of a bay at the bottom of some beautiful hills so that it catches the evening sunlight.



The entrance is guarded with stylish rusted steel signs and an army of agarve plants, all shaded underneath towering euchalyptus trees. Very tropical. A bit like a baddy's layre in a Bond film. The headquarters to Spectre perhaps?



When we arrived for real we could barely contain our excitement as we parked up against the sea front and made our way nervously towards cooking's Mecca. A charming group of fellow diners took our photos in front of Feran Adria's kitchen which felt a bit naughty but had to be done. We could see all the chefs getting our food ready inside. A hive of serene activity with the maestro at the helm.



We were taken to see Feran Adria and his immaculate open plan kitchen and were honoured with a very warm handshake. We really weren't expecting such personal treatment. We were then led to our table through a very distinguished but not over the top dining room and were seated in the corner looking out at everybody else. It made for incredible people watching as we waited for the menu and some champagne to arrive.

The menu is 30 "courses" long and is completely choice free. We had been asked previously if there was anything we didn't eat and we had said we ate everything! Did this include sheep's brains and marrow? Of course! How could we not in El Bulli!

The sommelier did an incredible job of offering me a reasonably priced bottle of Spanish wine with the option of a more expensive bottle that he said was probably not as good. The very epitome of great service. He knew a 25 year old was already mortgaging his life to come here so why ruin the evening by making me buy a bottle of wine for hundreds of pounds. In fact we were so focused on our wine that it lasted for the entire 4 hour meal!

Our snacks arrived along with a molecular gin fiz which is icy gin with an orangey, warm yoghurt topping that did a great job of balancing acid and creamyness, warmth and cold. It cleansed our palette for the onslaught that was to come.

The snacks included some pineapple french fries, yoghurt, peanut butter and chocolate wafers, beetroot puffs, petal candyfloss, curried rice balls wrapped in gold and spherical olives. All a complete shock to the system and served in such style it knocks whatever you see in Sunday supplements into oblivion. We took a few photos but they don't really do it justice. We just wanted to enjoy the experience.







If you want to see the whole menu have a look at the English and Spanish version below signed by the great man himself.





The general theme was of deep, earthy, challening tastes and textures. This was experienced most intensely during the succession of courses which moved as follows:

Razor Clams
Lamb Brain
Mackerel sweatbreads
Roast bone marrow
Truffle with truffle oil and walnut
Snails eggs
And anchovy

Intense. Heavy on unami and more than anything else very slippery. It really challenged us and has left an indelible impression on my mouth. Everything was deliciious but you wouldn't necessarily order it normally! But then again this is no ordinary experience.

Hightlights included a sensational cheese ice cream meringue with a little corn kernel infused with passionfruit. You eat it with your fingers, using the meringue spikes for grip and then feel like a taster in Willie Wonker's factory as the taste explodes in your mouth.



Then you realise why the people on the next door table had been tonguing the back of their molars and talking about something happending in the back of their mouths. That little kernel of passion fruit infused corn got wedged in the back of our teeth. Just like a rogue bit of pop corn does. Then the more you tongue it the more of the passion fruit flavour annexes your mouth ripping the cheesy ice cream taste away and leaving your palette cleansed for the next course. Sheer genius.

This got us talking to the table next door to us. These were the guys who took our picture earlier. The guy in charge was a chap from Hong Kong who had been trying to get a table for 5 years and was shocked to hear what a fluke we'd managed! He had given up trying to book for himself and instead did a deal with his mate with the black book from heaven to sort something out. In return he paid for his business class flights over from HK and 5 star hotel for 2 and for some other friends to come over too. On top of this they had wines that you could buy a small flat in London for. To him this was a once in a life time experience. He was going for it. One of their 10 bottles of wine was a Chateau Pingus which I saw in duty free on the way home for over a grand... Lord knows what it and the other 10 bottles set them back! But this wasn't done in an ostentatious way. It was a sheer epicurean extravaganza. Why do things by halves?

Another highlight was a dish of utter brilliance. Billed as a "Quebean" egg, it was a yoke cooked at 65'c for ages so that it was runny but cooked surrounded by a dash of stiff cream and a smear of taragon vinagarette. At first it made no sense. Then as you started to mix things together it turned into first hollandaise and then bernaise sauce. All we needed were some muffins and some grilled ham! It brought a smile to our faces and made us realise that we were being cooked for by the best, most innovative, playful and imaginative chefs in the world. People tell you off for playing with food. Bollocks!

We finished with some warm sheep's cheese wrapped up in candy floss with a nugget of quince paste. It was a quirky take on the what it's like to be a sheep which was a good laugh after some seriously brilliant food.

It all ended with a whisper of wind. The last course was a stack of brittle sugar panels which shimmered in the gentle breeze of the restaurant. So delicate. So different. So light. And yet again so clever.

My birthday cake was a special cardboard variety that I don't think you'll find in any card shop!



After our 4 hour marathon we left in awe. Blown away by the best meal we will ever have.

Flash Flash Tortilleria

If you want a decent omlette then there's no choice in the matter. It's imperative that you go to Flash Flash in Barcelona. Full stop.

Here's some blurb about it:

"Hamburgers, steaks salads, and over 70 types of tortillas are served up in a pop-art setting of funky black-and-white murals and white leather banquettes. It's completely authentic; Flash-Flash was opened in 1970 and the interior hasn't been altered since. The Twiggy-like model adorning the walls was the wife of Leopoldo Pomés, a well-known fashion photographer of the time and part owner. Decor aside, the food is very good; the tortillas fly out fresh and fluffy and the bunless burgers are some of the best in town. It's a favorite with uptown business types, some who have been coming here since the place opened."

We had an amazing bacon, cheese, white bean and onion tortilla that couldn't have been more gooey or unctious. Top class. The only problem with this palce is trying to find it and the ubelievably grumpy waiter who'd rather die than smile!

We found out about Flash Flash from the brilliantly quirky "Le Cool" guide book. You can see from the pages below that it isn't your normal Dorling Kindersly boreathon. In fact they've now got a weekly newletter/website for London and various other cities that's quite fun.



To see the map click here.