San Sebastián Gastronomika, A Basque Trilogy: Kaia-Kaipe, Elkano and Etxebarri

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Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí) Five-Watch Rating

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A Basque Trilogy

by Gerry Dawes

 

(First published in Food Arts, March 2010)

I was on another multi-tasking mission to Spain last November, and high on my list was attending the San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010 chefs conference, where several New York City food folk—Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Drew Nieporent, Anthony Bourdain, Colman Andrews, David Chang, and Wylie Dufresne—would be appearing. Especially appealing was the prospect of seeing what the conference organizer, Grup GSR, run by the Catalan dynamo Roser Torras, had up its sleeves for the annual event.

   
Roser Torras and Drew Nieporent at Elkano Restaurant, San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

Nieporent and I planned to meet in Bilbao Saturday evening, November 20, the night before we were due at San Sebastián Gastronomika. I was to get us a dinner reservation at the legendary Asador (grill-house) Etxebarri, southeast of Bilbao. I called Victor Arguinzoniz, the now-renowned owner/grillmeister of Etxebarri, called by some the best restaurant in northern Spain, and heard, “Sorry, but I don’t have a single seat”—not even for Nieporent, the famoso restaurateur. My fallback was Elkano, which has been called the best fish restaurant in the world, located in the magical fishing village of Getaria, near San Sebastián. “Elkano is closed for vacation,” a voice message said. Fallback position numero dos was Kaia-Kaipe, also in Getaria and also famous for whole wild grilled turbot.

   
Whole rodaballo (turbot) grilling at Kaia-Kaipe, Getaria.

Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

At Kaia-Kaipe, we had house-cured anchoas (anchovies) and excellent txangurro (a classic Basque dish of centollo, or spider crabmeat, sautéed with leeks and garlic, spiked with brandy, put back in the shell and browned under a broiler). Our main course was whole wild rodaballo (turbot) grilled over wood coals and filleted at the table, a glorious dish for which Getaria is justly famous. We accompanied the anchoas and txangurro with Getariako Txakolina, Getaria’s slightly pétillant “green wine,” and with the rodaballo we had a still impeccable Monte Real Reserva 1970 at a laughably reasonable price. After dinner, Nieporent’s driver appeared and whisked him off to San Sebastián. Because my conference lodgings were unavailable until the next day, I had booked a room in Getaria at the charming Pension Getariano, just across the street from Elkano restaurant.

Sunday evening, after a press conference featuring a panel of Basque star chefs—Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana, Martín Berasategui, Andoni Aduriz, and Hilario Arbelaitz—16 emerging Basque country talents prepared some wonderful degustaciòn plates for a reception. I saw Boulud and Brazilian journalist Alexandra Forbes watching as chef Ramón Piñeiro from the Frank Gehry–designed Marqués de Riscal hotel restaurant in La Rioja Alavesa put the finishing touches on his soufflé of Idiazabal cheese with organic olive oil, herbs, and citrus. Huevo frito con patatas, a still liquid egg yolk wrapped in thin strips of potato, then flash-fried, from chef Beñat Ormaetxea of Jauregibarria was perhaps the evening’s top mouthful.

 
 Daniel Boulud and Alexandra Forbes watch Ramón Piñiero of Marques de Riscal 

restaurant put the finishing touches on his Souffle of Idiazabal cheese. 

Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

San Sebastián Gastronomika took place during Thanksgiving week, with the contingent from New York appearing for their big day on Tuesday, November 23. Bouley, Boulud, Bourdain, Chang, Dufresne, and Nieporent all played to large appreciative audiences. Andrews was there for the presentation of his book, Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food. Also drawing large followings were the contingent of Spanish superstar chefs: Ferran Adrià, Joan Roca, Carme Ruscalleda, and Christian Escribà from Catalonia; San Sebastián home-grown estrellas such as Arzak, Subijana, Berasategui, Aduriz, and Arbelaitz (12 Michelin stars in total); Italian chef Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana, Modena); and Australian Neil Perry (Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne). A conference highlight was the homenaje (homage) by all his fellow Basque chefs to Spanish television’s Karlos Arguiñano, who is probably more famous here than Adrià.

 Anthony Bourdain presenting at San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. 

Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

Interwoven between the daily presentations was the star-studded scene at the Joselito Ibérico stand, where Spain’s ham king, José Gómez, and his crew of ham slicers served some of the world’s best air-cured hams, chorizo, lomo (loin), and salchichón (salami) trucked over from his aging plant in Guijuelo (Salamanca). Gómez likes to serve top Spanish red wines and French Champagne with his Ibérico pig products. It was not unusual to see the likes of Keller, Boulud, Adriá, and Arzak sitting together, toasting with flutes of bubbly while munching on Joselito’s stellar jamón Ibérico de bellota—air-cured hams from the acorn-fattened pata negra (black foot) breed of Iberian hogs.

  

 

 José Gómez, Joselito the Jamón king at San Sebastián Gastronomika. 

Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

To honor the New York presenters, Christian Escribà, the legendary Barcelona pastelero-chocolatero (pastry and chocolates) maestro, rolled on stage his large chocolate and marzipan creation of the New York City skyline with marzipan figures of the New Yorkers with their initials on their chef’s jackets. Andrews’ figure held a tiny copy of his book Ferran. “I really felt special, humbled, and honored to have Escribà’s amazing, extraordinarily meticulous New York piece presented to us,” Keller said. 

 
 Christian Escribà at San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. 
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

 
New York contingent posing with Christian Escribà's sensational pastry-and-chocolate creation of New York, New York at San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. Boulud, Nieporent, Dufresne, Andrews, Chang, Keller & Bourdain. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

Boulud cooked his famous foie gras/short rib/beef burgers on stage and passed out at least 200 portions to an appreciative audience in the VIP section of the 1,800 seat Kursaal Auditorium. Keller’s cooking demonstration was “certainly a departure. Everybody at San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010 was doing demonstrations based on formulas and  techniques,” he said. “Rather than trying to intellectualize or formulate something, my Per Se sous chef David Breeden and I went to La Bretxa market in the old quarter, and from ingredients available that morning, we just spontaneously prepared some beautiful dishes.” Beautiful indeed: citrus-cured mackerel with cipollini and compressed sour apples; uni with avocado, orange suprêmes, and arugula; Idiazabal with artichokes cooked sous-vide with compressed Paris mushrooms and watercress.

 
Three-star Michelin Chefs Juan Mari Arzak & Thomas Keller at San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. 
I first took Thomas Keller to Arzak in 1990, before he opened The French Laundry. 
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

As the conference broke for lunch, Arzak hailed me: “Gerry Adams! [that’s what he calls me], you have a rental car, no? I got a reservation at Etxebarri!” (See Departures profile of Etxebarri.) I jumped at the chance to have lunch there. It was after 3:30 when I pulled into Etxebarri’s parking lot in the Basque hamlet of Axpe. I hoped to photograph Arguinzoniz working at his specially designed grills, but I was informed by the woman running Etxebarri’s dining room that he didn’t want the distraction of photographers during service. Arguinzoniz’s style of grilling is a precise discipline that requires his full attention, especially when he performs such miracles as smoking caviar in a self-designed grill pan with microscopically fine mesh laser-bored openings that allow smoke to come through while holding in moisture.

 
Victor Arguinzoniz at the grills he designed himself at Etxebarri. 
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

I opted for the shorter tasting menu: smoked house-made mozzarella perched on a single slice of eggplant; a perfect house-cured and seasoned anchoa on a thin strip of grilled bread soaked with olive oil; exquisite pieces of nécora crab grilled in the shell; a pair each of lightly grilled, rosy pink gambas de Palamós (highly prized shrimp from the Costa Brava); a pair of lightly smoky grilled oysters with oyster liquor espuma (foam), perched on a slice of pickled eggplant; and grilled becada (woodcock) with its detached head and beak presiding over an assortment of grilled fall vegetables, a chestnut, and carrot puree. My only caveat was the repetition of smoke in every dish.

 
Necora crab a la parilla at Etxebarrr.
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

The meal at Etxebarri was yet another Spanish Basque triumph of exceptional product sourcing married to simple, but exceptionally refined, techniques, which, in the best places, trumps cocina de vanguardia sleights-of-hand nearly every time. In the hands of experienced maestros at Extebarri, Elkano, and Kaia, such dishes, because of their exquisite simplicity and pure flavors, remain etched in memory long after many of the cocina de vanguardia pyrotechnics evaporate like an espuma in the dessert. Perhaps that’s why so many Spanish vanguardia chefs have opened modernized traditional tapas bars in the past few years.

Fortunately, dinners begin late in Spain, which allowed a couple of hours after Etxebarri before dinner at Elkano (click to see Departures profile on Elkano, the third gastronomic thoroughbred in my trifecta. I arrived to find Elkano’s father-and-son owners, Pedro and Aitor Arregui, and their longtime grill chef, Luis Mari Manterola, sweating “la gota gorda” (the big drop) at the prospects of serving 130 people, including the culinary heavyweights attending the conference. 

  
 Luís Mari Manterola grilling turbot at Elkano. San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. 
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

From previous meals at Elkano, I had no doubts that they would impress even this crowd. And they did, serving us superb almejas (clams); a tartare of chipirón (small squid) with sea urchin and trails of chipirón ink sauce (a Getaria speciality); two preparations of kokotxas (hake glands), one grilled, the other battered and deep-fried, both ethereal; small samplings of fat sea-tasting percebes (goose barnacles); wood charcoal grilled langosta (lobster); and whole wild rodaballo (turbot) filleted at the table, all accompanied by light, refreshing small producer Txakolis from Getaria.  We finished by dipping into whole, wonderfully oozing Torta del Casar sheep’s milk cheeses from Extremadura and texturas de manzana reineta a la parrilla, a sensational grilled apple dessert.

   
Elkano owner Pedro Arregui, El Maestro, with two of the whole grilled rodaballo (turbot). San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

I sat with Nieporent, who agreed that Elkano was indeed the best fish restaurant in the world. Boulud took the microphone at the end of the meal and reaffirmed that appraisal. Chang was impressed: “The last thing I wanted to do was eat again, but I am so glad I went. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had.” 

 
Wylie Dufresne and David Chang at the Elkano dinner. San Sebastián Gastronomika 2010. 
Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com. 

 

 (Portions of this article was first published in Food Arts, March 2010)

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More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

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About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes was the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

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. 

 

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