Custom-designed Gastronomic, Wine, Cultural and Photographic Tours of Spain Organized and Led by Gerry Dawes and Customized Spanish Itinerary Planning

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 Specialized Tours of Spain & Tour Advice

 

 Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award).

 

 For custom-designed tours of Spain, organized and led by Gerry Dawes and Spanish wine, food, cultural and photographic itineraries, send inquiries to: gerrydawes@aol.com   

 

 

 

 "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.  At a time when most food journalists were writing about France and Italy, Gerry went off in his own direction to become the first to really tell the story of Spain. But, for Gerry, Spain is more than just the Adriàs and (Juan Mari and Elena) Arzaks.  He has connected with all manner of people working at every level and in every corner of Spain.  I’m always amazed at this reach.  You can step into a restaurant in the smallest town in Spain, and it turns out they know Gerry somehow.” - - Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter; Chef-partner of Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards, New York.

 

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"Before the golden age of food travel media, and long before Spain became the world’s most exciting food destination, there was Gerry Dawes. A walking (and eating) encyclopedia of Spanish food and culture—from tapas to the culinary innovators, from artisan winemakers and cheesemakers to the sites only the locals know—Gerry has chronicled them all.  Like few others, he continues to inspire and inform a generation of food writers, travelers, and chefs like me." – Dan Barber, Chef at Blue Hill New York and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, author of The Third Plate:  Field Notes on the Future of Food.

 

"Prowling through the bodegas, tapas bars, and markets of Spain with Gerry Dawes is an educational experience, sure, but more than that it’s an inside look at one of the world’s great gastronomic cultures, and more than that, it’s just a whole lot of fun. Gerry knows almost anyone you’d want to know in this delicious world, and those he doesn’t know, once he meets them, aren’t strangers for long. If you’ve never been to Spain with Gerry, don’t give up hope. It might happen yet. In the meantime, though, Sunset in a Glass will give you a tantalizing taste of the experience." – Colman Andrews, author of Catalan Cuisine and co-founder of Saveur magazine.

 

Gerry Dawes in Madrid taking Chefs Tetsuya Wakuda, Charlie Trotter, Norman Van Aken and their wives and guests to Marisquería Rafa in Madrid.

 

Wining and Dining Around Spain with Gerry Dawes: 

Part 1- Valencia and Alicante

"I have said this before and I’ll say it again, nobody knows Spain like Gerry Dawes. I sincerely doubt that there is another American, and very few, if any, Spaniards can approach, let alone surpass his knowledge of the people, food, wine and culture of Spain. He has been frequenting the depths, breadths and heights of the country as a second home for nearly fifty years, leaving no stone, and especially no wine, un-turned during that time. I have come to know him as a good friend over the ten years or so and have now had the pleasure to travel around Spain with him on a number of occasions, including last year, when he led my son and me on La Ruta del Ibérico, a tour of the major Jamón Ibérico de Bellota regions of Spain, which is to say the finest pork producing regions of the world. This year, Gerry and I did something a little different and no less unforgettable – we visited the finest wine regions of Spain, wining and dining like kings along the way."-- Dosconz:  Musings on Food & Life

 

 Baseball great Keith Hernandez checking out a paella in Andalucia.

I have planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco, Michael Chiarello, John Sconzo, Rozanne Gold and Michael Whiteman and such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez.   I have led numerous others on shorter excursions  (or have given detailed travel advice)to many other well-known chefs and personalities such as Drew Nieporent, Danny Meyer, Ruth Reichl, Norman Van Aken, Charlie Trotter, Tetsuya Wakuda, Bryan Miller, Georges Mendes, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, and James Campbell Caruso.  

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“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . . the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

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Walking around the exhibition floor (at Madrid Fusión 2014)  between sessions, I ran into — among others — writer/photographer and wine importer Gerry Dawes (whose knowledge of all things Spanish is encyclopedic). . . - - Colman Andrews, The Daily Meal

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 The late Chef Michael Chiarello at Breakfast in San Sebastián on a trip with Gerry Dawes.

 

"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. 

"Chiarello embarked on a crash course by traveling to Spain for 10 days in 2011 with Food Arts

contributing authority Gerry Dawes, a noted expert on Spanish food and wine.  Coqueta's (Chiarello's new restaurant at Pier Five, San Francisco) chef de cuisine, Ryan McIlwraith, later joined Dawes for his own two week excursion, as well. Sampling both old and new, they visited wineries and marketplaces, as well as some of Spain's most revered dining establishments, including the Michelin three-star Arzak, Etxebarri, the temple to live fire-grilling; Tickets, the playful Barcelona tapas bar run by Ferran Adrià and his brother, Albert; and ABaC, where Catalan cooking goes avant-garde." - - Carolyn Jung, Food Arts, May 2013.

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James Michener and Gerry Dawes at Michener´s home in Austin, Texas. 

 

"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

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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. 

 

Mr. Dawes in a reality television series pilot
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Help Support Gerry Dawes's Spain & Its Content

If you enjoy these blog posts, please consider a contribution to help me continue the work of gathering all this great information and these photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 and up will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $500 or more will be acknowledged on the blog. Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.
 

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com