KEY POINTS:
If the Costa Verde is the foodbowl of Spain, San Sebastian is the banquet table. This city on the Basque coast, an hour's flight from Madrid, claims the most Michelin star restaurants (11) per head of population in the world.
It is a city of gastronomy clubs where
locals spend Saturday mornings selecting the freshest seafood from produce markets and most of Sunday preparing, cooking and eating them.
But it is also the tapas capital of the world, its historic quarter weighed down with bars overflowing with finger food. You anticipate Ibiza-style mayhem at night but the pre-occupation with eating keeps things civilised - at least until midnight when bars close and the nightclubs start.
The idea is to gather a group of friends for the Spanish version of a pub crawl: sampling a tapas with a cerveza (beer) or rioja in each bar before moving to the next. It certainly supports a lot of bars.
Away from the waterfront, bars frequented by locals serve bread-based tapas with jamon, anchovies, goat's cheese or blended seafood toppings. Tapas may be only snack food to keep the alcohol at bay, but those on a backpacker budget can live well on snacks as substantial as paella or bocadilloes (filled baguettes) with tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette).
But in the old town near the fishing port, and particularly across the river in the Gros district, tapas have been elevated to the status of nouvelle cuisine.
We stop at Spain's bar of the year, Alona Berri, for creations such as the seaslide - a sliver of leek sliced stemwise, boiled then dried "at 50 degrees for five hours" and one end placed on a portion of mackerel sitting on chopped peppers. On the slide sit various spices and edible flowers.
A couple of blocks away at El Lagar, the tapas include a delicate gazpacho-like soup with saffron, egg and jamon, while nearby Bar Txepetxa is a temple to the anchovy, with 100 variations on a blackboard menu.
This, after all, is a town with its own anchovy society. Gastronomic societies were formed by hen-pecked Basque men as a place of refuge where they could cook fine meals and enjoy each other's company. Women long ago broke through the doors and the clubs, equipped with professional kitchens, are now venues for family gatherings and celebrations.
Of the three Spanish restaurants voted in the world's top 10 in this year's Restaurant magazine survey, two are in San Sebastian. Hundreds of others merely uphold the reputation of Basque cuisine as the best in Spain.
MORE INFORMATION
See www.tourspain.es
* Geoff Cumming visited Spain as guest of Turespana.
