Elite Traveler September-October 2015

101 elite traveler SEPT/OCT2015 ISSUE 5

Invest in a local Ibérico ham, which start at $500

Stop by the fine food shop in the lobby of Hotel Maria Cristina

Take a private pintxo bar tour with guide Eli Susperregui

Grab a table at Ganbara and pair your pintxos with an icy cold cider

demonstrations and gin and tonic workshops. Current plans include a pop-up butchery and a series of four-day courses in Basque cuisine with Ash Mair, the winner of UK television series Masterchef . Meanwhile in the basement, something else is cooking. The San Sebastián Food Cooking School opened its doors in March this year in what was once a gloomy and charmless space, but thanks to Warren and his young American designer, Marti Kilpatrick, is now welcoming and light-filled. The interior lies somewhere between hipster chic and shiny functionalism, the stainless steel and micro-cement sitting nicely side by side with rough wooden furniture in a nod to Basque rural tradition. The school hosts everything from cooking courses with local chefs to wine tastings, supper clubs and cocktail parties. One morning I join a candy-making class in which Basque pastry chef Rafa Gorrotxategi reveals the

Sicilia, Spain’s most expensive red wine, awaiting delivery to a customer in Tokyo. “It’s not uncommon for people to order cases of wine and whole hams to be sent across the world – they don’t care what it costs,” Warren explains. His connection with San Sebastián dates back to a trip he made long ago with a university friend: they were on their way to southern Portugal but had their heads turned by the food and hospitality of this charming seaside town. “Someday, I could end up living here,” Warren remembers thinking at the time. When, years later, he gave up his job as a banker, he came back here to seek his fortune. During stints as a hotel concierge he was often asked for advice on the city’s restaurants and became convinced there was a gap in the market. In 2009, still knowing little of Basque life, he opened a one-room venue on the edge of San Sebastián’s atmospheric and lively Parte Vieja (old town). But he was soon seeking bigger spaces, and in late 2013, Hotel Maria Cristina entered the scene. San Sebastián’s legendary hotel, founded by Spanish royalty and opened in 1912, had emerged from a glamorous refurbishment. But a first floor locale with views over the River Urumea was being used as a meeting room and the hotel’s former spa, in the basement, lay empty and unloved. Fast-forward to summer 2015: the meeting room is the food shop, while Warren’s portfolio of gastro activities now includes tours of the Rioja wineries, excursions into the French Basque country, plus coffee tastings, ham-slicing