Cooking up a storm..
One of the reasons why many people visit San Sebastian/Donostia is that it is famous for its innumerable restaurants, many of which enjoy very high international prestige. For years, Basque chefs have been in the vanguard of the world of nouvelle cuisine: Juan Mari Arzak, Andoni Luis Aduriz, Martin Berasategui are just three from a list of internationally respected chefs. Recently though there has been uncustomary turmoil in the world of Spanish haute cuisine. The source of this little culinary storm is Santi Santamaría, a leading Catalan chef himself, who provoked a public controversy with the publication of his book, La cocina al desnudo, in which he accuses many of his fellow chefs in Spain of taking things to unnatural extremes as regards the new ways they have developed for creating specialist dishes. For Santamaría, Ferrán Adrià, top Catalan chef, must be the arch culprit in this respect. Adrià's restaurant, El Bulli, regularly leads the list of 'World's Best Restaurants' but to hear Santamaría talk you might think that Adrià was the veritable Doctor Frankenstein of international cuisine. Some commentators have wryly commented on the fact that a bit of spicy controversy has been very helpful in promoting Santamaría's new book and that personal rivalry is as much a part of the clash of philosophies as anything else.
Whether you subscribe to the traditionalist approach of Santamaría or the more avant-garde style of Adrià and many of the top Basque chefs, you are guaranteed to eat well in Donostia and the neighbouring areas. Very well indeed. What's more, although it might seem expensive, eating in the top restaurants of Donostia/San Sebastian is notably cheaper than in other culinary centres of similar prestige around the world. So, the culinary storm that figured prominently in the media during the month of May is already disappearing over the horizon. As for the underlying debate as to whether haute cuisine is just for food snobs, rest assured that in the Basque Country what has never changed in popular cooking is the insistence on using only ingredients of the highest quality, cooked with the utmost care and attention. Bon appétit!
3 comments:
Well,
Did my last comment provoke this article or do I flatter myself?
Anyway, I'm not trying to enter a debate that I'm not qualified to enter.
Tony, you know I love cooking but I'm not expert on haute cuisine and fancy restaurants. My earlier comment was because most my favorite "Spanish" dishes are Basque.
But here are a couple of references for English readers.
Probably my most used Spanish cookbook (in English), to date, is Nicholas Butcher's "The Spanish Kitchen" (currently unavailable) in which he condemns the Basques as being too pretentious about their food.
A few months back I was reading Anthony Bourdain's "The Nasty Bits" and their is a chapter "Decoding Ferrán Adrià". I can't say I'm ever likely to afford to get the first hand experience but you get the impression (from a commentator who can be unforgiving) that the heart is very much in the right place.
Got to dash, feeling peckish...
Hiya Tony. Yum, this sounds delicious!
What sort of dishes do you typically get there? I always think of the typically Spanish dishes paella etc but I presume basque food like the culture must be pretty different?
How much is an average meal for two there incl wine etc? I recently went to Maso Franch a wonderful restaurant near us where we ate very, very well for about €40 per head. Not bad really.
You can read a good description of this restaurant on the Eat Drink Man Woman blog.
Well, now I just hope I have the opportunity to come visit the Basque country and try some if this wonderful food out (I'm a total foodie btw)
Seth :-)
Well, hello Mike and Seth.. food is a topic of some interest it seems...
I don't know the book you mention Mike, Nicholas Butcher's "The Spanish Kitchen", but the comment about "he condemns the Basques as being too pretentious about their food" I think is really aimed at the chefs that Santamaría was criticising too, rather than the Basques in general.. If you are a 'foodie', as Seth declares himself to be ;-), then perhaps the 'art of cuisine' is as important as the simple pleasure of eating good food in good company. Much as I like good food and good wine myself, I have always felt somewhat suspicious of the whole world of haute cuisine, which is much the same as the way I feel about haute couture - namely that there is a lot of pretentiousness and snobbery involved, and that prices are often exaggerated in keeping with the egos of those who like to indulge in conspicuous consumption. But..... I really don't think that is the case in the Basque Country so much. As I mentioned before, prices here in top restaurants are much less than in similar establishments around the world. Or so they tell me, as I have to confess that I haven't yet eaten in such a place. Maybe now I will have to, in the interests of good blogging!
So Seth, as to the question of typical dishes and prices here. On the one hand, typical Basque dishes are generally simple - meat or fish of very high quality with very little accompaniment. Then there are typical regional dishes such as cod in green sauce, baby squid in a sauce based on its own ink, and so on. I'm having problems posting hyperlinks to these Blogger comments so here's a direct URL to try: www.ondojan.com. This site (in Basque and Spanish only) will give you a good idea of what is typical restaurant fare here. The Basque phrase ondo jan means 'eating well' approximately.
As for prices, in my humble opinion, the best value is to go a medium- ranking restaurant and have a meal based on the set menu, which should cost between €20 and €30. It's often cheaper to eat in restaurants outside of Donostia itself, with the notable exception of course of the 'top' places. The Ondojan site provides links to many restaurants in Donostia and the Basque Country, with menus, prices and so on, many of which are in English too. You can also see pictures too - I couldn't find anything that was copyright free to illustrate the original posting, which was a pity. So, I'll just have to go for a meal at Arzak now and take my camera with me!
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