Elite Traveler September-October 2015

Sample some of the region's finest roasted red peppers

INSPIRE SAN SEBASTIÁN

At Ganbara, the wildmushrooms with eggyolk a la plancha are to die for, as is themelt- in-the-mouth beef cheek at LaCuchara de SanTelmo

Try your luck at the Michelin Star Secrets cooking masterclass

packed with foreigners. The place is on a roll – that much is clear from the old-town pintxo tour Warren has organized for me. Even on this midweek evening, at an early hour by Spanish standards, the stone streets of the Parte Vieja resound with voices French, English, American and Japanese. San Sebastián’s classic pintxo bars are a litany of excellence, and each has its own speciality: I revisit Txepetxa, famous for its cured anchovies with creative additions like foie gras with apple or blackberry jelly; Gandarias (chargrilled pork sirloin); and Nestor (possibly the world’s best tortilla de patata ). Tonight at Ganbara, the wild mushrooms a la plancha with an egg yolk are to die for, as is the melt-in-the-mouth savory slow-cooked beef cheek at La Cuchara de San Telmo – a corridor of a bar so busy that customers are spilling out onto the street. The following morning in the food shop at the hotel,

secrets of almond-based goodies such as tejas de Tolosa and turrón de guirlache . The following day I sign up with a group of foreign foodies for a Basque Cooking Masterclass that involves a guided shopping tour of San Sebastián’s La Bretxa market followed by a cooking session with chef Cristina Ibanez. On the menu are classic Basque dishes such as the gilda , a supercharged aperitif combo of pickled hot pepper, anchovy and green olive all threaded onto a cocktail stick. After the class, the group sits down around a big oak table to enjoy the vegetable menestra and hake in green sauce that we have made ourselves. My fellow cooks include a Chinese American from New York who is spending his banker’s severance pay on a month in San Sebastián (“I’m going to eat my way around this city,” he declares), a Filipino girl who is learning to surf on Zurriola Beach and a couple from San Francisco who gladly reveal their travel priorities: they book the restaurant tables first (last night was Zuberoa, the day before that Azurmendi, and tomorrow the great Arzak), and their accommodation second. San Sebastián was, after all, always in the premier league of Spanish cities for the excellence of its food, which extends both to the gastro temples (the region is said to have more Michelin stars per resident than any other city in the world) and the pintxo bars, where haute cuisine comes in bite-sized portions. But something has changed. For many years the presence of ETA, the Basque separatist group, kept the gastro tourists at arm’s length. Now, thanks in part to the group’s near-disappearance, tourism is booming and the city’s three-star restaurants are