Epicurean Ways Blog

New Michelin Stars for Spain

2012-11-23T15:30:00Z

New 3 Star Restaurants

Quique Dacosta, Denia, Alicante
Azurmendi, Vizcaya

New 2 Star Restaurants

Enoteca, Barcelona
Moments, Barcelona

Our Barcelona Office Opens September, 2012

2012-08-28T16:37:00Z

We are thrilled to announce that our Barcelona office will open in September. With our feet on both continents, we will be in an excellent position to develop and operate the insider’s trips we are known for and to plan trips for our clients in North America, Australia and New Zealand. With our increased presence in Spain we have created new and specialized trips for 2013 which will be posted on the website this month. We have a cadre of expert food and wine guides on the ground ready to escort you on a trip designed for you and your group, or on one of our 2013 group trips hosted by chefs and wine professionals.

Menus in Spanish & Portuguese

2012-08-25T22:38:00Z

Have you ever been faced with a menu you don’t understand, with no English translations, and no one in the room to help? If your idea of travel includes sampling the authentic cuisine of a place you will likely find yourself in that predicament. Spain presents little problem for travelers when it comes to eating in tapas bars. Most of the menu items are laid out along the bar, or you take stock of what other people are eating and ask for the same. But once you’re in that small undiscovered restaurant with a menu only in Spanish you’re lost. The staff doesn’t speak English and nothing on the menu looks familiar. You can use your phone to look up words, but do you really want to incur those roaming charges? We’ve come across a pocket-sized solution. Eating & Drinking in Spain & Portugal by Andy Herbach is a useful Spanish-English and Portuguese-English food dictionary that fits in your pocket or purse. (Paperback, 136 pages)

Most of the book is dedicated to Spanish to English and Portuguese to English food and menu translations, making it invaluable when faced with a menu you can’t decipher. The main traditional Spanish dishes are included in the glossary, along with a smattering of Latin American ones. The book also includes an overview of the types of eating and dining establishments in Spain and Portugal, a brief explanation of the regional cuisines, and a short list of tapas bars and restaurants in both countries. We think it’s invaluable even for those on a tour or with a guide most of the time. It will give you the courage to venture into the smallest or most remote bar or restaurant. Highly recommended.

Catalonia Epicurean Trip

2011-08-16T14:24:00Z

In that corner of northern Spain between Barcelona and the border with France–Catalunya’s Girona province–autumn brings warm sunny days and the feeling that the towns and beaches are reserved for you alone. The grape harvest is in, the olives are ripening on the trees waiting for their late fall or early winter harvest, and there is a stillness that puts a person’s soul at ease. It is an ideal time for a cooking holiday in a small medieval village halfway between the gorgeous Mediterranean Sea and the city of Girona.

Our annual Gourmet Emporda trip in October will introduce you to this beautiful and seemingly remote region of Spain. We will spend 6 days cooking with a professional chef, eating traditional Catalan cuisine and trying the wines at a winery near the Pyrenees, walking along the stunning Costa Brava before enjoying a fresh seafood lunch overlooking the Mediterranean, visiting an artisanal goat cheese maker, eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and learning to cook traditional Catalan dishes. The hotel, forged from a series of 15th century buildings, has an elegant restaurant run by your chef-instructor, and an outdoor terrace for breakfast and late night Gin and Tonics–the drink in Spain. Our base is a medieval village halfway between Girona–known as “little Barcelona"–and the stunning Mediterranean coast.

The trip is part cooking retreat, part food and wine adventure, escorted by a food and wine specialist guide. Join us October 21 - 26 for an insider’s experience in this little known part of northern Spain.

Gourmet Emporda

Extraordinary Women of Spain: Chefs and Winemakers Across the Iberian Peninsula

2011-07-30T00:09:01Z

What’s cooking in the world of wine and food in Spain? The big news this week is that El Bulli–the world’s most famous restaurant–in Roses, Spain is closing its doors this weekend. An enormous loss to food lovers around the world, but it doesn’t mean that Spain is left without a decent place to get a meal. The well known Michelin stars–Arzak, Mugaritz, Ruscalleda, and others–remain. And an array of non-Michelin starred restaurants as well.

We’ve noticed a rising tide of female chefs and winemakers in Spain, some new and some who have been creating food, from traditional to avant-garde, and wines in wineries from the Priorat and the Rioja to Txakoli and Ribera del Duero, for decades. Epicurean Ways and Epicopia Culinary Journeys have visited these chefs and winemakers and together we’ve created two trips showcasing Spanish women creating outstanding food and wine.

Extraordinary Women of Spain will debut in 2012 with two trips. The first trip travels to Catalunya, spending time in Barcelona, and the Penedes, and then moves to La Rioja and San Sebastián in the Basque Country. Planned for June, 2012. The second trip, in October, 2012, starts in Catalonia, and travels down the Mediterranean to the Penedes, Priorat, Valencia and Alicante, home to a bevy of award-winning Spanish women cooking.

Some of the chefs we visit and cook with are famous; others are not, but are amazing chefs. The winemakers include world-renowned masters of the craft as well as passionate owners of small wineries.

We have designed the trips for women, about women. Our guide in Spain is a specialist in the food, wine, art and architecture of the country, and is the go-to person for the international press on matters gastronomic. And she is, of course, a woman.

We would love to have you join us, with a friend.

Wine Blogger’s Conference 2011

2011-07-27T19:00:01Z

The 2011 Wine Blogger’s Conference in Charlottesville this past weekend featured over 300 American and Canadian wine bloggers, speakers Eric Asimov and Jancis Robinson, and daunting amounts of wine from the US, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Chile. (Revelation: They make wine in Texas!) Met some fascinating wine makers/sellers/writers who braved the oppressive Southern heat and humidity to taste, and then blog and Twitter about it all. Quite the weekend.

Spanish Food Wine Travel Daily

2011-07-25T17:01:00Z

Our new Spain Food Wine Travel Daily paper delivered to your inbox or Twitter feed. Check it out.

Chef Norman Van Aken’s Dream Trip

2011-04-19T21:58:01Z

Chef Norman Van Aken:

I’d take my wife and son to La Boqueria Market in Spain. My wife and I have been, but we have been promising our son Justin that we’d take him for a few years now. He’s a chef and his excitement for amazing produce and all forms of food would be as engaged as ours were when we went for the first time. As a father, it’s one of those things I’d like to give my son. We’d start with the legendary Pinotxo tapas bar and then just go!

Apple Cider from Spain

2010-12-08T02:10:00Z

Does anyone associate Spain with quality hard apple cider? More often Spain brings to mind red wine, Sherry, and perhaps Estrella beer. Little known is the fact that northern Spain produces outstanding hard cider, traditionally made in Atlantic Spain–the Basque Country, Cantabria and Asturias. Snooth reviews a couple of them, ranking them alongside French and American hard ciders.

Andalucía Rising

2010-12-07T17:23:01Z

People often ask me which are the most popular culinary destinations in Spain. The answer is the Basque Country and Barcelona and environs. Those regions attract the lion’s share of visitors from abroad because they have been in the culinary spotlight for decades, with the Basque chefs beginning the Spanish culinary revitalization in the 1970s, and receiving multiple Michelin stars along the way, and the Catalans tirelessly promoting their culinary heritage and being home to one of the the world’s most famous chefs– Ferrán Adrià.

In Andalucía, however, the story is slightly different. Think Andalucía and you think monuments like the Alhambra in Granada and the Mezquita in Córdoba, or you think flamenco, beaches, and possibly Sherry. It’s an image problem, as many Spaniards and even more foodies familiar with Andalucía will attest: the best tapas are found in Andalucía, and some of the freshest seafood and local produce, and tastiest locally raised beef and pork, wild game and fowl are used in the South. The ingredients used are stellar. Some of the Iberian Peninsula’s most intriguing recipes–many with Moorish inflections–come from Andalucía.

World’s Best Airport Architecture

2010-12-05T20:50:00Z

Contemporary architecture in Spain, especially in the Basque Country, Barcelona and Madrid, when coupled with food and wine tours, makes for a compelling reason to visit this country of extreme contrasts between new and old, modern and traditional. Not only does the cuisine exhibit both tendencies, albeit thankfully not on the same plate; the architecture displays this visual contrast, at times within a single line of vision. Stay at Frank Gehry designed Marqués de Riscal Hotel in La Rioja and the view from your angled hotel room window is of a medieval Spanish village, soothing in in monochrome stone.

Madrid’s Barajas Airport Terminal 4 and Bilbao’s airport–La Paloma– are both featured on SkyScanner’s list of the World’s Best Airport Architecture.

Madrid’s Terminal 4 and 4S, designed by Richard Rogers Partnership, opened in 2006. In 2008 it won the Best Airport in the Condé Nast Traveller Reader Awards. I have to say that I route myself and clients through Madrid whenever possible for visually exciting layovers in T4.

If you go to the Basque Country, you will likely fly via Bilbao. The airport was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava–architect of Valencia’s futuristic City of Arts and Sciences and of Ysios Winery in the Rioja wine region. Done in white and resembling a bird aloft, the airport makes for an appropriate entrance to the city that is home to Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum.

Wines Worth Cellaring

2010-11-19T19:38:01Z

Snooth’s Gregory Dal Piaz recommends Spanish wines made from the little known Mencia grape as affordable wines that will benefit from time in the bottle. Look for wines from Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras–two DOs in Galicia that use the Mencia grape.

Explore the Towns Near Madrid

2010-11-11T19:16:01Z

There are things to do and see, and food to try, outside of Madrid. And the good news is that these towns are easily accessible by Spain’s train system. Segovia, Ávila, Toldeo and little known Aranjuez make for lovely day trips from Madrid.

Segovia is best known for its intact Roman acqueduct spanning town and for Cochinillo at Cándido’s, where the baby roast suckling pig is cut with a plate, demonstrating its tenderness. Ávila is a medieval walled city, typically Castilian in flavor; Toledo was the center of Jewish, Christian and Islamic cultures, and is home to one of the best restaurants in Spain; Aranjuez is the site of Spanish Royalty’s summer palace and the place to be in May for fresh strawberries. And some awesome cuisine at the hands of contemporary chefs.

We love visiting these towns when we’re in Madrid. Let us help you plan some days out, on your own or with one of our private food and wine guides.

Read about the towns near Madrid worth exploring.

How many bars in Spain?

2010-11-09T16:04:00Z

Spain has over 300,000 bars and restaurants, according to a recent report, which equates to approximately 150 people to each bar. The region with the most bars is Andalusia, with 53,046 bars.

In Spain, you are never far from refreshment. A few things to keep in mind regarding these numbers: People in Spain frequent bars for everything from a morning café con leche to tapas with friends to late-night cocktails. Bars are social gathering spots, day and night, and patrons may drink beer, wine, liquor, coffee, soda or water. Children accompany parents, groups of friends gather, individuals stop in for a quick plate of tapas or bocadillo (sandwich).

Bars are great places to stop when thirsty, hungry, tired or to make a phone call or read the paper. Much of Spanish life is lived on the streets, and bars form an integral part of street life. So, when in Spain, live as the Spaniards do. Stop in at a bar and try the coffee–usually excellent–or a caña (beer) and a plate of olives or boquerones.

Source: Damian Corrigan at About.com

La Vida Tapa

2010-10-26T00:37:00Z

Ferrán Adrià muses on tapas and life: “Para nosotros la vida tapa es un concepto global que une la gastronomía a una forma de entender la vida. Una forma divertida de comer que convierte a quien participa en intérprete de una obra de teatro, de una revista de coristas, de un vodevil circense, en protagonista de un entremés cantado. Una puesta en escena de la vida misma. En la vida tapa no hay lugar para el aburrimiento, para la tristeza y la soledad, lo hay para las risas, la complicidad y las buenas compañías”

Read about Ferrán and Albert Adrià’s new tapas bar in Barcelona. Named Tickets, it is slated to open 11-1-11