Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today I'm with my friend Phil.
Hey, Harry, what's up?
Everything good, man. So you're back in Berlin?
Yeah, back in Berlin. Back home, finally, after 10 long years of travel.
Wow.
I've returned, like the lost son returning home.
Actually, you left Berlin when you went to Mugaritz, so I was with you that day, right?
Yeah, man. Almost 10 years ago.
That's crazy. So we wanted to talk about the Basque Country, and that was your first experience in the Basque Country.
It was, yeah, it was actually. And it was very impactful. The Basque Country is a very, very beautiful place.
I mean, both from the landscape, but also, you know, culinary. It's a very, very unique place that has a really strong identity, you know,
it's a very crazy mix of land and of cultures. And yeah, it's got a lot of character.
Actually, for me, it was the same. I left home from Venezuela, and the first place I went was also to Mugaritz.
And I was there for a season, stashing. And then I was out, like for pretty much 10 years, at least, before I came back.
And now I've been here for the last five years.
It's an amazing place. I mean, I love it, you know.
So culinary-wise, what are your your favorite things here?
Wow, so many things. I love super traditional stuff like cocotchas.
Ah, that's amazing. Yeah.
It's such a unique thing. Like, I've never seen that anywhere before, you know.
How would you describe this in English?
It's the throat. It's a hake throat. No, sorry, cot throat, no?
It's like a V-shaped piece of meat just under the jaw of the fish.
And I would say the magical thing about it is the texture. It's like really gelatinous with this kind of fish meat quality to it.
And it also has a lot of collagen that emulsifies the sauce, whatever sauce it's served on.
Yeah, and it's like so unique, you know. And for me, it was kind of like, wow.
It was a real wow moment the first time you eat it.
And also, as you were describing the gelatinous quality of it, you know, the pil-pil sauce, which is so traditional in the Basque countries.
You know, like the first time I ate it, I was just really surprised.
It's funny because, you know, my family is from South Spain, from Andalusia, and there they have gambas al pil-pil, which have nothing to do with the Basque pil-pil.
This is just like the gambas al ajillo, like the gambas cooked in garlic that you find all over Spain, but they will call it al pil-pil.
So it was kind of confusing when I realized this was a complete different thing in the North.
And I would describe it as kind of like a warm mayonnaise.
But instead of using egg yolk, it's using the collagen of the fish.
So it emulsifies the oil and it usually has some garlic and some chili as well.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's just this really luxurious kind of texture, you know, it kind of makes your lips a little bit sticky.
And it's really it's just really delicious and anxious.
If I'm not wrong, pil-pil is original from Bilbao and salsa verde is original from here, from Gipusqua.
And it's similar in the sense that it's also emulsified with the collagen of the fish, but it also has a little bit of flour.
And it's a super basic thickened fish stock, a very light fish stock with garlic and parsley.
And it's usually served on on hake. And sometimes it also well, you can also get the coccocchas in salsa verde.
And sometimes there are also clams served with the same sauce and the same fish.
I actually like salsa verde better than pil-pil.
Yeah, I love salsa verde. Yeah, especially with clams. I really, really like it. Super nice.
Yeah, the best one I had was at Ibai.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, sadly it closed already. Did you know this?
It doesn't exist anymore.
Oof, that's tough.
There was one of these lists of the best restaurants in Europe where they named the best restaurant in Europe.
Well, this was a super funny place because it has like this speakeasy quality to it that you would come into a not so great looking bar and you would be like, OK, am I in the right place?
And then you would go downstairs and then there is this super small, amazing place with just four or five tables.
I actually went there with Shinobu Namai, the chef from Le Ferguson's in Tokyo, and the chefs come out and they serve you the dishes.
Everything is amazing.
It could easily have a Michelin star, but it didn't have any because the the workers were quite radical.
Like they would insult you if you wouldn't like book a table or these kind of things.
I had the Merluz and salsa verde.
I also had coca-cola and I remember the chef coming out and saying, no, you have to eat the coca-cola all at once, not cutting it like two pieces or anything.
So they had like this moody attitude all the time.
But it was an amazing place.
And I remember Shinobu Namai saying I could easily come back to take a plane back here just to have this Merluz and salsa verde again.
Yeah, it is an absolute one of my favorite eating experiences I've ever had by far.
For me, it's like a perfect restaurant.
I mean, in terms of food, in terms of service, it was like it was very funny, you know, because it was just like these old grumpy guys who would just treat you however they wanted, you know, if they felt like taking the piss out of you, they would.
They didn't give a shit.
And it was really funny.
When I went, I went with two friends of mine who were all working at Mugaritz at the time.
And after lunch, we said to the head waiter, we said, hey, is it maybe possible to see the kitchen?
And he was like, no.
But yeah, I had a super amazing meal there.
The coccotchas were amazing.
I remember in Salada de Boga Avante, they called it a lobster salad, which was like a warmed lobster, like a little bit of the tail, a little bit of the claw in a sort of like vinegary sauce.
That clay is really kind of it's like an elevated representation of what I find so fascinating about Basque cooking.
You know, it's just super pure.
It's so simple.
You know, it's just ingredients and technique.
And that's it.
Yeah, it's very minimalistic.
And you will see this also not only in fine dining, but also like in traditional food.
Well, these are traditional dishes.
None of them have more than 10 ingredients.
They're quite simple.
Like pil-pil is just four or five ingredients, same with salsa verde.
Yeah.
What about grilling?
It's also like a big thing here in the Basque country.
Yeah, for me, that was a huge draw to the place.
I mean, like the restaurant that I was working in, Mugaritzen, is kind of a little bit further into the countryside, into not the mountains, but like the hills of the Basque country.
And I mean, as you know, there's a huge grilling culture, especially in the cider houses, you know, where during the season you can go to the cider houses.
And basically you keep ordering food and then you like keep drinking.
So like the more food you order, the more you can drink and you get sort of like tapped straight from the barrels and stuff.
And the food there is like very simple.
It's like very traditional recipes.
I think we have to talk about the most iconic thing, which is the chuleta.
Well, like, I mean, that's really the thing that you talk about.
Yeah, the reason you go to a cider house.
Yeah.
So I mean, a chuleta is basically a big rib eye steak.
Yeah, bone in rib eye steak.
Bone in rib eye steak.
Yeah, exactly.
From a dairy cow, right?
It has to be a dairy cow.
It's from a very mature animal usually, and it's just very fatty and has a very particular texture.
And in the Basque country, it gets just very, very simply grilled, covered with coarse sea salt and grilled so that the outside is really, really caramelized.
But the inside is, I mean, basically raw.
Yeah, raw but warm, I would say.
I mean, completely raw but warm, which might sound a little bit strange to a lot of people, but it's super delicious.
I mean, honestly, really, if you think about all the fucking beef that you've eaten around the world in restaurants and anywhere else, you know,
I think I've never had beef that was as good as the ones grilled in, like, not even like fancy places, but just like rural cider houses in the Basque country.
Yeah, I agree.
I actually have a memory back then in 2005 when I was also working at Mugaritz.
We went to a cider house.
It was like a group thing with the workers.
And I still remember having the meat there.
It was so nice.
Also to mention about cider houses, cider is completely different here in the Basque country.
It's not sweet at all.
It goes like in the direction of a sour beer, very light and alcohol.
There are about 20 cider houses in a village called a Cigarraga.
Which is where you usually go for a cider house trip.
And you will always get the same menu.
So you can easily compare which cider house has a better dish in the menu.
And you start with a cut fish omelet.
Then you have cut fish with fried peppers.
Then you get the chuleta, right?
Sometimes you also have like cheese torla and bread at the beginning.
Then you have the steak and dessert usually is Iria Saval cheese, quince and nuts.
Yeah, walnuts.
So it's a super nice menu.
Yeah, it's really, really nice.
And it's like super, it's just super local.
There's something mystical about these like grilling places because they're in the mountain.
It's like foggy.
It's like really secluded.
And then you get like extremely good food.
And then a lot of people took that sort of feeling, that sentiment and kind of like developed it further.
I mean, very, very famously, Bito from Echebari.
You know, I mean, Echebari is now very, very famous in the world, you know, in the world's 50 best list and whatnot.
I don't even know, like they must have Michelin stars.
No, I don't know how many.
I think two, if I'm not wrong.
Yeah.
And I mean, it started as a cider house and he just obsessed over these rural primal cooking techniques
and developed it further and further and further, you know.
And for me, that place is like such a cool, it's also like such an amazing representation of Basque food, you know,
because the identity is so Basque.
There's this like really mythical feel to it of just like having amazing produce.
For me, cooking in Basque country is all about the produce.
People are so proud of the land and the resources that they have, you know, the ocean, the mountains, the dairy.
And it's just that like cooked over open flame.
And it's super beautiful.
It's so like raw.
And so, yeah, just so primal and pure.
Yeah, another one that goes in that direction, but in the seafood category would be Elcano.
I remember the first time I went to Elcano, I had no idea about the place and I sit down and they send us like the first Amis Bush.
And I was like, oh, this place could easily have a Michelin star.
And my partner was like, well, it has a Michelin star.
And I was like, oh, OK, good to know.
It was really nice because it's like when you watch a really nice movie and you don't know anything about it before watching the movie,
nobody told you anything.
So everything is a surprise, starting with being in a Michelin star restaurant without knowing.
And Elcano is just all about grill and all about seafood product.
I remember having a super nice fish soup that is brown, just from caramelized fish.
They always have like some kind of seasonal rarity of the sea.
It could be Perseves, it could be crab, could be whatever.
And then usually a whole piece of fish.
I remember we had tubo and everything is amazing.
They also do like fish carving in front of you at the table while they tell you the whole story of the fish.
It's really, really nice.
It's such a cool place.
And those two things like grilled fish and chuleta, I've never had a bad one in the Basque country.
I mean, you can go to any standard restaurant next to the beach or any asador,
like any grill house, and you will get like a super nice piece of meat or fish.
Yeah.
And you know, like now hearing you talk about this,
I can't remember why these experiences in the Basque country, why I found them so impactful, you know,
because starting to cook, basically still as a teenager, you know,
if you start out and you want to go to the Michelin star places,
you want to do the fine dining because you want to work at the highest level, you know,
like you want to work for the best.
And I had a really like interesting experience working there in the Basque country
at one of the most famous Michelin star restaurants in the world.
And then on the weekend, you would go out to these cider houses
and eat food that would completely blow your socks off.
You know, you go to a good grill in the mountainside and you eat the food there.
And you're like, man, there's like one guy in there grilling, you know,
and it makes you really question everything that you're doing
because you spend 15 hours working six days a week together with like 40 other chefs
to create these really elaborate cerebral dishes.
And then you go out and you go, you know, we had the same thing
and when we talked about tortilla de patata, you know, you drive to the village
and you have a tortilla de patata or you drive to the mountains,
you have a chuleta and you're like, like this, this is really what food should be, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
For me, anyway, I was like, man, like this is the most enjoyable fucking food
experiences I could possibly have.
Why am I doing anything else?
Or having a pinch of wok in Old Town in San Sebastian, it's also a crazy experience.
Totally.
And I mean, I love to have like the equivalent of a long menu
where you have like, let's say, 10 bites and then you're done.
And I mean, there are really amazing dishes, hidden gems everywhere in the city
that are worth a taste.
Yeah.
For instance, you talked about tortilla.
You can go to Bar Nestor, have the tortilla, have something as simple as a tomato salad,
a chuleta, some grilled peppers and a platter of cold cuts.
And you had an amazing meal.
And it's so non pretentious completely.
It's just a very simple food, just with the best products, ingredients and execution.
Totally.
I mean, like the whole pinch of culture is just so amazing.
What I think is like super cool is that you have this mix of really, really traditional,
but also like really creative in a way, like without being out of the box.
You know, I mean, like I remember one of the last times when we met up to have pinchos together,
you know, we went to, ah man, what was that place called?
We had the...
Tamboril.
Yeah, Tamboril is also amazing, but we had the scallop with the ajo blanco.
Ah, yeah, of course.
Casa Urola.
Casa Urola, yeah.
And it's like, you know, it's not a traditional dish, but it's also not, not traditional.
You know what I mean?
And it was creative, like an original, but it was just super delicious.
And it wasn't, it didn't feel out of place at all.
Yeah, there have been a few restaurants, Casa Urola is one of them, that were opened by chefs
that were trained at Michelin star restaurants.
And that also changed the whole food scene of San Sebastian.
Casa Urola is one of them, Bordaberri, Cuchara de San Telmo.
So when these places opened, they kind of changed the way pinchos were cooked in the city.
And they set up a new standard.
So all the other restaurants had to keep up to the game they were setting.
And that's kind of the reason why you see so many sophisticated tapas in the Basque country,
as opposed to the rest of Spain, where you will see just bread with chorizo and that's it.
And here you see a slice of bread with five different things in a skewer.
It makes a difference.
Hello there.
I just finished editing this episode.
And since this is part one of Basque cuisine and gastronomy,
I think it's worth mentioning that Eric is currently offering some really cool food tours in San Sebastian.
Go to Eric's website, gastrogems.com and book your private food tour.
The link is in the episode description.
You can expect a complete hassle-free eating frenzy.
Eric will take you to the best bars in town and fill you up with each place's specialty.
You just have to follow along and eat.
Oh, and drink amazing Basque cider.
Check out the different tour packages on his website and you will see it's super affordable.
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Potluck Food Talks airs every Monday.