Ever heard of pintxos…?

It’s 9.30pm and we’ve just arrived at La Cuchara de San Telmo, a pintxos bar in the old town (Parte Vieja) of San Sebastian, northern Spain. Having wound our way through the labyrinth of narrow streets and packed bars in drizzling rain, we’re glad to arrive.
Winding our way through the old town of San Sebastian

Winding our way through the old town of San Sebastian

But it’s chaotic. People are spilling out onto the laneway, huddled together under umbrellas waiting to get in.  And it’s Tuesday night. We push our way in, jostle with the crowd near the bar, look at the dishes chalked up on the blackboard, and try to decide among the 18 pintxos on offer that night. All around us, people are standing and eating, the lucky ones with places at the bar. I point to a few of the dishes.
Blackboard menu at La Chuchara de San Tolme, San Sebastian

Blackboard menu at La Chuchara de San Tolme, San Sebastian

“That’s the beef cheek,” a man who speaks English tells me. “This one’s the pig ear, that’s the salted prawn with lime perfume, that’s foie gras and those are the scallops.” After much deliberation we order, and hallelujah! the dishes arrive soon after, freshly cooked and piping hot. Some of us have ordered beer, and others the Finca La Estacada Tempranillo, an aromatic, well-balanced red wine. How the bartenders remember what dish belongs to whom, I don’t know. My meltingly rich beef cheek sits on a bed of buttery mashed potatoes surrounded by a pool of demi glace and is so good that I want more; the scallop is roasted, wrapped in Guijuelo bacon and comes with a lightly curried cauliflower puree: it’s fat, juicy and absolutely delicious; the creamy foie gras had been sauteed with honey, mustard and orange peel.
Melting flavoursome beef cheeks at La Chuchara de San Tolme, San Sebastian

Meltingly rich beef cheeks on a bed of buttery mash at La Chuchara de San Tolme, San Sebastian

The pintxos here are so good I want to stay and try more. But the others want to move on, the idea being to sample just one or two, at the most three, pintxos at each bar and then move on to another. While similar to the better known tapas, pintxos are usually smaller and served on a small piece of bread with a toothpick through the middle.  Pintxos literally means thorn or spike and comes from the Spanish word pinchar (to pierce). In the Basque region of Spain, you’ll find pintxos served in all the bars, often temptingly spread all along the counter.
Typical pintxos bar in San Sebastian offering a wide arrange of choices

Typical pintxos bar in San Sebastian offering a wide arrange of choices

Even if it comes without the cocktail stick, it’s called pintxos. The range is vast, especially in the bars in San Sebastian: from the ubiquitous traditional pintxos of tortilla de patatas (potato and onion omelette) to roasted pig trotters with romesco sauce, risotto of mushrooms and idiazabal (a Basque cheese), garlic soup with pig’s ear, braised veal cheeks in red wine with chickpea hummus or a bacalao (salt cod) taco. You could spend a whole week cruising around these bars and not sample all the pintxos on offer in the old town.
Another fabulous pintxos bar in San Sebastian's old town

Another fabulous pintxos bar in San Sebastian’s old town

But I’m also on a UNISG study tour and, reluctantly, have to move on for other reasons. The following morning, we visit the 2 Michelin star Mugaritz restaurant, set in rolling green hills 10Km south-east of San Sebastian. Established in 1996 by the rebellious, innovative chef Andoni Luis Aduriz, “it’s a place where (in his words) we sometimes serve meals.” We are greeted by Ramon Perise, chef in charge of the Research & Development kitchen who shows us behind the scenes. We start in the oak-lined dining room with coffee, served in handmade pottery cups and freshly baked biscuits.   Muga means on the border between between two villages, and ritz means oak tree.” One of the female staff is busy ironing the long white cloths for the tables. “When guests arrive,” Ramon tells us, “there is nothing on the tables, only the white cloth, each with its own light. There are 16 tables and we can take up to 55 guests.  In the kitchens there are 70 staff overall, with 35 in the main kitchen.” The wine list is divided by style, not region, and is changed every 3-4 months along with the menu and a wine is never repeated. “The restaurant is not financially sustainable. It’s part of a large company with three other restaurants in San Sebastian and Bilbao. “Money is not the way to success. With money, the monkey dances.”
Ramon showing us the herb garden

Ramon showing us the herb garden

He leads us out into the herb garden which turns out to be “a tour of the world”. “We grow herbs and flowers here that we can’t find at the market,” he tells us. There are cosmos flowers, Japanese sancho pepper, hot lips salvia, Mexican sacred leaf, amaranth (“we deep-fry the flower and it tastes like popcorn”), dahlias (“we pickle the petals and serve them with clams”), tiny melon cucumbers, portulaca (“we use if for texture”), Japanese ginger, Szechuan pepper, Mexican huacatay, white and blue borage and many more. Then it’s into the hectic kitchen where chefs and interns are busy preparing the 24 dishes for the degustation menu. Ramon explains that each year in April the team creates 70 new dishes and that the menus are built around these. On the day we visit, I find Kylie Millar, a former Australian Masterchef contestant busy at work preparing fresh herbs from the garden for mortero. “It’s served in a mortar & pestle and the sound it makes is meant to remind guests of the clanking bells around the necks of local sheep,” she tells me.
Aussie intern, former MasterChef contestant, Kylie Millar

Aussie intern, former MasterChef contestant, Kylie Millar

“The first ten dishes are finger food so that the guest has direct contact with the food (a nod to the Basque tradition of pintxos), the next ten dishes require cutlery and some fingers and the traditional order of fish, meat and vegetables is mixed up.” At Mugaritz, Aduriz has managed to achieve a balance between avant-garde and traditional Basque cuisine. The crazy ideas and new techniques, Ramonn tells us, are developed in the upstairs R&D kitchen. “We always work as a team and follow one direction in our creative thrust. Andoni is at the top of the pyramid – he sees the whole picture. We have some highly conceptual dishes. Food is the tool to promote emotions in our guests, it’s about emotions and experiences. We don’t like too much to explain the dishes. “Sure, it’s risky because sometimes we serve weird dishes to provoke our guests. We have our own way.”
Busy preparing lunch at Mugaritz restaurant

Busy preparing lunch at Mugaritz restaurant

This refusal to conform has resulted in many successes: since 2006 Mugaritz has figured among the top ten in the list of Restaurant Magazine. It’s a whole other world away from the atmospheric pintxos bars of San Sebastian. Mugartiz features on the ‘Grand Tour’ of gastronomic tourists, many of whom are American and Australian. “Food helps to motivate their travels,” he says.  “And for us in the Basque country, it’s an important way of expressing identity.” A taxi has just pulled up and guests are arriving for lunch, the signal that we have to depart. Now, for that meal…?