* * * * *
Tour Organized and Led by
Writer-Photographer & Spain Expert
Gerry Dawes
Premio Nacional de Gastronómía 2003
Food Arts Silver Spoon Award
(Award profile written by José Andrés - Dec. 2009)
Ferran Adrià and Gerry Dawes at Bar Basque, NYC, Oct. 13, 2010.
We will return to San Sebastián after lunch and the afternoon will be free until evening when we will go on a optional tapas-hopping tour of San Sebastián’s best pintxos bars and restaurants, with optional gin-tonics, etc. at one of the city’s greatest bars.
Day 03 Monday, Nov 29 San Sebastián
Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastian
In the morning, we will visit the colorful La Bretxa, Basque caserío farmers' market and San Martín market, then have some tapas in the bars surrounding the markets, some of which may have as many as 50 pintxos lined up along the bar.
For lunch, we will take a drive west along the Cantabrian Sea coast of the Bay of Biscay to the wonderful Basque fishing village of Getaria, hometown of Elkano, the first man to circumnavigate the globe; Balenciaga, the famous fashion designer; and Placido Domingo’s mother.
First we will have several exceptional seafood appetizers at Elkano, one of the greatest fish and seafood restaurants in the world, then walk down the hill to Kaia (in the same family as Elkano), which has spectacular views of the fishing port from its perch on the hill and offers whole turbot grilled outdoors over a wood fire, accompanied by wines from one of the most enticing wine cellars in nothern Spain. Gerry Dawes has had multiple experiences in both restaurants and we will get special insights into Basque seafood cooking.
After some post-prandial patxaran (Basque liquor), we will explore a little more of the coast, then return to San Sebastián where guests will be have free time until dinner.
Dinner will be at Rekondo, a game specialist and one of the few restaurants open on Mondays. First, we drive past Rekondo up Monte Igeldo for spectacular Ipanema-like night views of San Sebastián. Txomín Rekondo is a friend of Gerry’s and will show us his phenomenal wine cellar, which is one of the best in Europe.
Day 04 Tues, Nov 30 San Sebastián - Navarra - Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
In the morning, we will drive south about an hour and a half to visit the wonderful storybook castle-village of Olite in Navarra.
A short drive from Olite, we will stop for an early (for Spain) lunch with a Navarra winemaker near Tudela at a restaurant in southern Navarra specializing in the famous vegetables of the Ribera de Navarra region.
After lunch, we will head for Barcelona, arriving in the early evening, and check into our hotel, La Duquesa de Cardona, which is conveniently located between the Port Vell (the yacht basin) and the beach and the lively Las Ramblas area, which we will visit often during our time in Barcelona.
We will check into our hotel and have time to relax before we head for dinner at a restaurant facing the Port Vell, El Suquet de L'Almirall, where chef Quím Marquéz turns out some exceptional interpretations of modern dishes based on traditional Catalan recipes. Marquéz worked at El Bulli and is a very good friend of José Andrés.
Day 05 Weds, Dec 01 Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
We will have breakfast/lunch at the fabulous Mercat de San Josep, La Boquería, where we will sample the cooking of two of the legendary market bars, Pinotxo and Quím de la Boquería, and explore the market, where Gerry will introduce us to several of the key players that make this market one of the greatest in the world.
For dinner, we will sample Ramón Freixa's superb food at El Raco d'en Freixa, Barcelona's top-rated restaurant. Afterwards, we will either go to the OMM hotel, one of the sexiest restaurant-watering holes in Barcelona, then our guests will have the option of drinks in the muy movida bar or visiting one of Barcelona's legendary night clubs.
Day 06 Thurs, Dec 02 Barcelona - Manresa - Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
We will try to get our group into Ferran Adrià’s elBulli Taller workshop, but we can’t promise that yet. However, Ferran and his brother Albert are opening an upscale tapas restaurant in Barcelona in November and the bar should be open by the time of our visit, so we stop there for a drink at some point during our stay in Barcelona.
By 11 a.m., we will head from Manresa to visit the Alicia Foundation, which Ferran helped to found. This institution that explores the connection between Alimentacion (food) y Sciencia (science) is more about exploring the science and healthful aspects of food. It is not a laboratory for creating the innovative new dishes that Ferran and the other vanguardia chefs are famous for, but it is a fascinating place that is not to be missed.
Right next to the Alicia Foundation is the Angle Restaurant, where one of the best young chefs in Catalunya (and all of Spain) cooks. Gerry had an exceptional lunch there in March.
After lunch, we will return to Barcelona, where the rest of the afternoon will be free to visit this amazing city.
In the evening, we go on a tapas tour of Barcelona. Later, we will have the option of having drinks at El Velodromo, a Barcelona classic that was renovated and revived last year, after many years of being closed, by Carlos Abellan, one of Ferran Adrià’s best known disciples.
Day 07 Fri, Dec 03 Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
The morning and afternoon will be free to tour Barcelona.
In the evening, in la Barceloneta, at Can Majo, we will have our farewell dinner on such wonderful dishes as first-rate traditionally prepared mariscos (shellfish), paella and arros negre (black rice) cooked with squid and colored with squid ink, along with some local Catalan wines.
Day 08, Sat, Dec 04 Barcelona - USA
Late morning flight to the U. S. Option to spend more days in Barcelona.
Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
Gerry Dawes has been traveling the Food and Wine Roads of Spain for more than 40 years and is personally acquainted with hundreds of restaurateurs, chefs, winemakers and food-and-wine personalities. We will eat great food, meet a slew of great Basque and Catalan chefs and food personalities, taste wines with a winemaker or two, take lots of great photographs and develop a camaraderie on this trip that will ripen in recounting into vintage nostalgia.
Ferran Adrià and Gerry Dawes at Bar Basque, NYC, Oct. 13, 2010.
Photograph by John Sconzo©2010.
Tour accompanied by Dr. John Sconzo,
food aficionado & photographer extraordinarío.
Author & photographer of
Doc Sconz - The Blog: Musing on Food and Life
Tour accompanied by Dr. John Sconzo,
food aficionado & photographer extraordinarío.
Author & photographer of
Doc Sconz - The Blog: Musing on Food and Life
(All photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes 2010.)
Prices quoted are without airfare from the U.S. to Bilbao and return from Barcelona and include five and four star hotels, all designated restaurant meals with wines selected by Gerry Dawes and bus transportation within Spain. Pricing depends on how many travelers will be joining the tour.
2 travelers: $7,000.00
4 travelers: $5,000.00
6-8 travelers: $4,500.00
10-16 travelers: $4,000.00
Itinerary:
Day 00 USA-Madrid-Bilbao Evening Flight
Evening departure from the U.S. with each guest arranging own their flights.
Day 01 Saturday, Nov 27 Arrive Madrid, transfer to flight to Bilbao
Gerry Dawes will meet guests at the Bilbao airport. We will take a short trip into Bilbao and see the Guggenheim Museum from the outside and have some tapas in the old quarter.
Day 01 Saturday, Nov 27 Arrive Madrid, transfer to flight to Bilbao
Gerry Dawes will meet guests at the Bilbao airport. We will take a short trip into Bilbao and see the Guggenheim Museum from the outside and have some tapas in the old quarter.
Guggenheim, Bilbao. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010.
Leaving Bilbao, we will make another short trip to have lunch at Extebarri, where chef-owner Victor Arguinzoniz has taken the art of grilling to a new level. Some experts consider Etxeberri to be among the top restaurants in Spain.
After lunch, we will drive an hour to San Sebastián, where we will check into the magnificent turn-of-the-19th century Hotel Maria Cristina by 5 p.m.
Siesta time until dinner at 9:30 p.m. at either Restaurante Arzak, Juan Mari Arzak and daughter Elena’s three-star temple of gastronomy, or Martín Berasategui’s superb three-star Restaurante Martín Berasategui in nearby Lasarte. All three chefs are long-time personal friends of our tour organizer.
Day 02 Sunday, Nov 28 San Sebastián
Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastián
Sunday morning will be free to explore the old quarter and walk the magnificent la Concha beach and esplanade.
Lunch will be a short ride outside San Sebastián at Mugaritz, where Chef Andoni Aduriz is considered one of the most innovative young chefs in the Spanish cocina de vanguardia movement.
After lunch, we will drive an hour to San Sebastián, where we will check into the magnificent turn-of-the-19th century Hotel Maria Cristina by 5 p.m.
Siesta time until dinner at 9:30 p.m. at either Restaurante Arzak, Juan Mari Arzak and daughter Elena’s three-star temple of gastronomy, or Martín Berasategui’s superb three-star Restaurante Martín Berasategui in nearby Lasarte. All three chefs are long-time personal friends of our tour organizer.
Day 02 Sunday, Nov 28 San Sebastián
Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastián
Sunday morning will be free to explore the old quarter and walk the magnificent la Concha beach and esplanade.
Lunch will be a short ride outside San Sebastián at Mugaritz, where Chef Andoni Aduriz is considered one of the most innovative young chefs in the Spanish cocina de vanguardia movement.
Pintxos of mushrooms with ham and txangurro (crab) in a pastry shell
with a rosado from Navarra at Bar-Restaurante Gandarias.
We will return to San Sebastián after lunch and the afternoon will be free until evening when we will go on a optional tapas-hopping tour of San Sebastián’s best pintxos bars and restaurants, with optional gin-tonics, etc. at one of the city’s greatest bars.
Joaquín Fernández, owner and champion barman of Dickens
in San Sebastián, making his classic Gin Tonic.
Day 03 Monday, Nov 29 San Sebastián
Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastian
In the morning, we will visit the colorful La Bretxa, Basque caserío farmers' market and San Martín market, then have some tapas in the bars surrounding the markets, some of which may have as many as 50 pintxos lined up along the bar.
For lunch, we will take a drive west along the Cantabrian Sea coast of the Bay of Biscay to the wonderful Basque fishing village of Getaria, hometown of Elkano, the first man to circumnavigate the globe; Balenciaga, the famous fashion designer; and Placido Domingo’s mother.
First we will have several exceptional seafood appetizers at Elkano, one of the greatest fish and seafood restaurants in the world, then walk down the hill to Kaia (in the same family as Elkano), which has spectacular views of the fishing port from its perch on the hill and offers whole turbot grilled outdoors over a wood fire, accompanied by wines from one of the most enticing wine cellars in nothern Spain. Gerry Dawes has had multiple experiences in both restaurants and we will get special insights into Basque seafood cooking.
Turbot grilling at Kaia.
After some post-prandial patxaran (Basque liquor), we will explore a little more of the coast, then return to San Sebastián where guests will be have free time until dinner.
Dinner will be at Rekondo, a game specialist and one of the few restaurants open on Mondays. First, we drive past Rekondo up Monte Igeldo for spectacular Ipanema-like night views of San Sebastián. Txomín Rekondo is a friend of Gerry’s and will show us his phenomenal wine cellar, which is one of the best in Europe.
Day 04 Tues, Nov 30 San Sebastián - Navarra - Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
In the morning, we will drive south about an hour and a half to visit the wonderful storybook castle-village of Olite in Navarra.
A short drive from Olite, we will stop for an early (for Spain) lunch with a Navarra winemaker near Tudela at a restaurant in southern Navarra specializing in the famous vegetables of the Ribera de Navarra region.
Wine lunch in southern Navarra.
After lunch, we will head for Barcelona, arriving in the early evening, and check into our hotel, La Duquesa de Cardona, which is conveniently located between the Port Vell (the yacht basin) and the beach and the lively Las Ramblas area, which we will visit often during our time in Barcelona.
We will check into our hotel and have time to relax before we head for dinner at a restaurant facing the Port Vell, El Suquet de L'Almirall, where chef Quím Marquéz turns out some exceptional interpretations of modern dishes based on traditional Catalan recipes. Marquéz worked at El Bulli and is a very good friend of José Andrés.
Day 05 Weds, Dec 01 Barcelona
La Boquería
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
We will have breakfast/lunch at the fabulous Mercat de San Josep, La Boquería, where we will sample the cooking of two of the legendary market bars, Pinotxo and Quím de la Boquería, and explore the market, where Gerry will introduce us to several of the key players that make this market one of the greatest in the world.
Quím de la Boquería
For dinner, we will sample Ramón Freixa's superb food at El Raco d'en Freixa, Barcelona's top-rated restaurant. Afterwards, we will either go to the OMM hotel, one of the sexiest restaurant-watering holes in Barcelona, then our guests will have the option of drinks in the muy movida bar or visiting one of Barcelona's legendary night clubs.
Day 06 Thurs, Dec 02 Barcelona - Manresa - Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
We will try to get our group into Ferran Adrià’s elBulli Taller workshop, but we can’t promise that yet. However, Ferran and his brother Albert are opening an upscale tapas restaurant in Barcelona in November and the bar should be open by the time of our visit, so we stop there for a drink at some point during our stay in Barcelona.
Albert Adrià, José Andrés and friend at Inopia, the tapas bar in Barcelona that Albert recently sold. All photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010.
By 11 a.m., we will head from Manresa to visit the Alicia Foundation, which Ferran helped to found. This institution that explores the connection between Alimentacion (food) y Sciencia (science) is more about exploring the science and healthful aspects of food. It is not a laboratory for creating the innovative new dishes that Ferran and the other vanguardia chefs are famous for, but it is a fascinating place that is not to be missed.
Chef Jordi Cruz, Angle Restaurant, and
Toni Massenes, head of the Alicia Foundation.
Right next to the Alicia Foundation is the Angle Restaurant, where one of the best young chefs in Catalunya (and all of Spain) cooks. Gerry had an exceptional lunch there in March.
After lunch, we will return to Barcelona, where the rest of the afternoon will be free to visit this amazing city.
In the evening, we go on a tapas tour of Barcelona. Later, we will have the option of having drinks at El Velodromo, a Barcelona classic that was renovated and revived last year, after many years of being closed, by Carlos Abellan, one of Ferran Adrià’s best known disciples.
Day 07 Fri, Dec 03 Barcelona
Hotel Duquesa de Cardona, Barcelona
The morning and afternoon will be free to tour Barcelona.
In the evening, in la Barceloneta, at Can Majo, we will have our farewell dinner on such wonderful dishes as first-rate traditionally prepared mariscos (shellfish), paella and arros negre (black rice) cooked with squid and colored with squid ink, along with some local Catalan wines.
Portions of arros negre, black rice with squid, and
paella de mariscos, shellfish paella, at Can Majó in La Barceloneta.
Day 08, Sat, Dec 04 Barcelona - USA
Late morning flight to the U. S. Option to spend more days in Barcelona.
__________________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes
Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.
Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
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