Aaron Taboada
Barcelona Cocktail Bars

The bars listed here transcend fashion and serve the good stuff night after night. These aren’t the only cocktail bars in Barcelona, or necessarily the most famous, but for timeless classic concoctions this is where you might start. 

Barcelona Cocktail Bars
Jane Gregg
Barcelona Wine Bars

Despite being the big city in the heart of Catalunya, a major wine-producing region itself with 12 separate DOs, Barcelona has traditionally reserved the good wines for restaurants and boutique wine stores. The scene is changing, slowly.

Barcelona Wine Bars
Restaurants
Jane Gregg
Eating in Rioja: The Best Wine Country ...

The two most important things when visiting wine country are good wine and good food. In Rioja the confluence of local and regional ingredients and refined cooking techniques trickling in from the nearby Basque Country has created a culinary landscape that matches the depth of the local wine culture.

Eating in Rioja: The Best Wine Country Restaurants
Aaron Taboada
What Happened to Fine Dining in Barcelona?

Barcelona’s casual ethos and market cuisine have birthed a new version of haute cuisine. For years, some of Catalonia’s best chefs have been serving diners at the bar, no tablecloth, and by now names like Gresca and Dos Palillos are legendary in Spain. It’s now the most exciting time to eat in the Ciudad Condal (City of the Counts) in years.

What Happened to Fine Dining in Barcelona?
Restaurants
Paul Richardson
Paul Richardson’s Guide to Eating in Madrid

With so much variety to choose from, navigating Madrid’s restaurant scene can seem like a daunting task.   Before you even set sail, it’s worth taking stock of the city’s idiosyncratic dining customs.  Most notoriously, the timetable.    Madrid eats late: lunch is commonly taken between 2pm and 4pm while dinner is not much earlier than 9pm and often (especially in summer) as late as 11pm. 

Paul Richardson’s Guide to Eating in Madrid

Susan Spicer's Spain

Join Chef Susan Spicer of Bayona and Mondo Restaurants in New Orleans for the trip of a lifetime in Spain. Visit the Basque Country, the Rioja and the French Basque Country. Exclusive winery visits, cooking classes, artisan producer visits, and amazing dining at Michelin-starred Etxebarri, Michelin-starred Akelarre, and a winery dinner with Michelin´starred Venta de Moncalvillo. ​

Join us at Bayona Restaurant in New Orleans for a wine and tapas event to learn more about the trip. March 21, 5:00 PM.

Contact us for more information about the trip.

La Tasquita de Enfrente

La Tasquita de Enfrente was long on my radar since a couple who traveled with us in 2011 reported that they had a fantastic dinner there, highlighted in part by meeting the chef-owner Junajo. Last Wednesday as I was riding the AVE high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid I realized that I would arrive in central Madrid in time for lunch. As soon as I arrived I had the hotel concierge call La Tasquita to book a table, and as luck would have it, there was one small table available. Bingo!

La Tasquita is located in a slightly unsavory part of Madrid just off the Gran Vía, back where the old streets intersect at odd angles. Its location means that we typically send travelers there with a guide or in a taxi because it can be tricky to find and slightly disconcerting if you can't find it right away. An unassuming place from the outside, La Tasquita is both intimate and luxurious inside. I was met and seated by Juanjo himself, who asked if I wanted him to bring me his choice of dishes. Perfect. A waiter was at the table immediately asking me what I wanted to drink. We were off to a good start.

The wine came followed in short order by a succession of courses: Anchovies from Cantabria cleaned by Juanjo himself, beautiful artichokes, Tuna Tartare, Pulpo (octopus) Ceviche, Sting Ray à la meunière with capers, and for dessert the most delicious Panna Cotta.

The quality and freshness of the products and the masterful just-right treatment of the ingredients make La Tasquita a must-go restaurant in Madrid. Chef Juanjo is considering opening a restaurant in NYC in the near future. Should we be so fortunate!

La Tasquita de Enfrente, Calle Ballesta, 6, Madrid, +34-915-325-449

No online reservations. You have to call Juanjo.

Getaria

The NYTimes has put Getaria on the 2013 Travel List

They say:

From San Sebastián, it’s just a 25-minute drive, mostly along a gorgeously winding waterfront highway, to Getaria. For centuries, this fishing village was all about a quiet maritime life, with boats bobbing in the small port, and seaside restaurants grilling excellent fish (and becoming renowned among gastronomically picky Basques). For centuries, Getaria’s most famous local son was the navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, who sailed with Magellan and was the first to circumnavigate the globe in the early 16th century. But more recently, a local boy went out and became a fashion icon. After decades of squabbling over funding, the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum finally opened in summer 2011, drawing a sophisticated design set to Getaria’s twisting medieval central streets, and filling its restaurants and hotels with travelers from Paris, Madrid and beyond. — Sarah Wildman

Near Getaria

Near Getaria

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

We recently attended an olive harvest and oil-pressing day Moreda de Álava, in the Rioja Alavesa region. The oil was produced from Arrónig olives, a little known olive variety common in the Rioja and Navarra regions before olives trees were ripped out or abandoned 30 to 40 years ago to make way for grape vines. Now some local farmers are reclaiming olive groves and putting them into production for extra-virgin olive oil. And many of the groves are Arrónig groves.

At the olive oil mill the bags and baskets of Arrónig olives were unloaded and the olives were quickly pressed into a green-golden liquid. Once the oil was bottled we tasted freshly pressed oil. We tasted it in the blue glasses used in olive oil tastings and we tasted it drizzled on freshly baked Spanish bread. The oil is spicy and burns slightly, similar to the oil made from Andalusian Picual olives. Given the limited production of olive oil made with Arrónig olives, we may not hear much about the oil outside of Rioja and Navarra, but it is worth seeking out. I'm thinking it would be a spicy addition to those alubias de Tolosa (Tolosa beans).

I found a recent article on olive oil written by Mediterranean food expert and cookbook author Nancy Harmon Jenkins, in which she discusses the role of the olive variety in the taste of olive oils. Olive Oil: Tasting the Differences, from The Art of Eating.

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