Is Spanish Cuisine best in the world?
Last night, San Pellegrino/Acqua Panna announced the The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Five restaurants from Spain made the list: the top spot went to the Roca brothers for their worshipped El Celler de Can Roca of Girona (Catalunya), three out of the five were awarded to Basque restaurants; Arzak (#8) and Mugaritz (#4) in San Sebastián and Asador Etxebarri (#44) in Atxondo, and another award went to Quique Dacosta in Denia, Spain.
This comes with a flurry of press covering regarding the status of Spanish food in the world. Both CNN and The Independent came out with articles praising the country’s cuisine just last month, while publications like Time, The Huffington Post and The Los Angeles Times broke the news last night that the “Reign of Spain” in the culinary world, is not over.
So, is the praise of Spanish cuisine well-deserved?
Absolutely.
Spanish cuisine is multi-dimensional. It’s as much about a simple, home-cooked meal made with fresh vegetables from la huerta as it is about molecular gastronomy made famous by Ferran Adrià, tapas and pintxos shared amongst friends, and gastronomic innovation.
It’s about sobremesa: those late nights gathered around a table with full bellies and a little too much Crianza. It’s about savoring freshly-sliced Jamón Ibérico, sampling your neighbor’s homemade sheep’s milk cheese, plentiful olive oil, and never too much garlic.
It’s about the Basque sociedad; where cooking becomes recreation, a Sagortegia where the apple harvest is celebrated, ferias dedicated to the local specialty and Spanish men and women recreating passed-down recipes in their modern-day kitchens.
Spanish cuisine represents both ends of the spectrum; from simple and traditional, to innovative-creative, has something for all tastes, and is certainly deserving of such a distinguished award.
Congratulations to the restaurants selected!
I definitely think Spain deserves this recognition (and more!) The diversity of the types of meals you can get in this country never ceases to amaze me. The quality of the products and the passion of the producers is something to be seen. Go Spain!
Lauren recently posted…Botin: The World’s Oldest Restaurant
Absolutely it’s definitely my favorite!
I think it deserves it! I love Spanish food. I can’t wait to try Basque food this summer!
Jessica of HolaYessica recently posted…The 6 Best Things to Do in Ibiza Without Being Drunk
You’ll love it, I’m sure! Let me know where you’ll be, we’ll have to try to meet up!
My husband and I spent 2.5 weeks in Spain last April and we really had terrible luck with Spanish food. We found it really difficult to find the gems amongst the sea of tourist-y tapas places that were generally quite awful. Despite trying to research good restaurants ahead of time, our 2 favourite meals of the entire trip were Italian.
I’d love to give it another try – perhaps with a Spaniard who could show us around or armed with the 5 restaurants listed above.
Jay recently posted…Copenhagen
Ah, that’s so sad! I wish I could have shown you some good spots. Did you come to Basque Country at all? Each region’s food is so different from the next.