GRILL GODS
Man on fire: Asador Etxebarri, Axpe, Basque country
“In the flames of the fire lives something that can help ingredients reach their fullest potential.” These are the words of Bittor Arguinzoniz, high priest of the low flame who abandoned his job as a forester years ago to create one of the world’s most astounding grill shrines. Everything – from the homemade goat butter to the caviar-size spring peas to the grass-fed Galician beef to the apple tart – gets hit with smoke from wood the chef chops right outside the back door. But this isn’t the hard smoke of a pit master; this is the delicate finesse of an artist in full control of every bite that passes into the dining room. Ask 10 of the best chefs from around the world where they’d eat their last meal on earth, and probably half would tell you here, at the high-mountain altar of Etxebarri.
• Plaza de San Juan, 1, 48291 Atxondo, Bizkaia, +34 946 58 30 42, asadoretxebarri.com
Raising the steaks: Bodega El Capricho, Jiménez de Jamuz, León
Eating at Bodega El Capricho will be the most intense meat experience of your life. José Gordón is like a man possessed in the pursuit of the perfect steak, a journey that starts by raising his own bueyes (oxen) on a special diet of grain and grass, then drying ageing primal cuts of meat based on the age and breed of the animal. A meal at El Capricho starts with ruby veils of raw, aged ox loin, then moves on to cecina (dried beef cured and aged like jamón), ox blood morcilla (blood sausage), and an outrageously good tartare. But all of that is a prelude to the main event: chuletón de buey, rib steaks with nothing on them but coarse salt, cooked over oak until charred on the outside and barely warm throughout. The meat packs deep concentrations of umami and mineral intensity and a rim of dense, yellow fat that tastes like brown sugar. Warning: It will be hard to go back to regular beef after El Capricho.
• Paraje de la Vega, s/n, 24767 Jiménez de Jamuz, León, +34 987 66 42 24, bodegaelcapricho.com
The turbot kings: Elkano, Getaria, Basque country
Above the Atlantic in a small coastal village between Bilbao and San Sebastián, Elkano is best known as an asador de pescado: a family-run restaurant with a particular focus on grilled fish and seafood. The main attraction is rodaballo, wild turbot cooked whole over charcoal, a technique perfected by Elkano’s founder Pedro Arregui in the 1950s and continued today by his son Aitor and chef de cuisine Pablo Vicari. After a heavy shower of coarse salt and a 12-minute ride on the grill, the turbot is served whole at the table, then divided into its various constituents: dark, fatty back sections; light, meaty fillets – and ribs that leak juice down your forearms. The end product eats like an essay on the astounding potential of the sea, a range of tastes and textures you didn’t think possible in a single fish.
• Herrerieta, 2, 20808 Getaria, +34 943 14 00 24, restauranteelkano.com
Fish tales: Güeyu Mar, Playa de Vega, Asturias
On a quiet stretch of Asturian coastline, between the Cantabrian Sea and the Camino de Santiago, at first blush Güeyu Mar looks like a chiringuito – a mellow seafood shack. However, inside nothing about husband and wife Abel and Luisa’s work is the least bit laid-back: not the remarkable wine list, nor the specialised hand-cranked grills or the constantly rotating, individually sourced menu of fish and seafood. Depending on the day, your meal may begin with tiny, candy-sweet quisquilla (shrimp) and grilled oysters with caviar and conclude with any of half a dozen whole grilled fish: from the pull-apart flakes of grouper to big-bellied king fish rippled with fat and gelatin. Afterward, waddle down to the nearest stretch of sand for a siesta.
• Playa de Vega, 84, 33560 Ribadesella, Asturias, +34 985 86 08 63, gueyumar.es
AMAZING PLACES IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Stone mountain stew: Casa Juanín, Asturias
The Picos de Europa, home to dramatic mountain terrain, are a setting for hearty people and hearty food. No restaurant proves that better than Casa Juanín, in the tiny village of Pendones. You’ll find Juanín out front pouring drinks and telling stories to a pack of locals while his daughter Isabel works magic behind the burners. Here, €15 will get you a feast fit for an Asturian coal miner: braised goat, venison picadillo (hash), bottomless bowls of wild boar fabada (stew), and a flan and a rice pudding that may make knees buckle. The only thing to worry about is how to get back down the mountain.
• Lugar Pendones, 4, 33997 Pendones, Asturias, +34 985 61 37 25, on Facebook
Clandestine cocktails: Soda 917, Villaviciosa, Asturias
Just beyond the apple orchards of Villaviciosa, down a winding country road, is an unassuming tobacco shop. Make your way past the packs of Camels and rolling papers and into Soda 917, a low-lit bar lined with leather couches where one of Spain’s legendary bartenders plies his trade. Kike once ran Negroni, one of Barcelona’s top cocktail outfits, before retiring to this clandestine countryside spot. But the slower lifestyle hasn’t dulled his ambition: He stocks more than 100 gins and an arsenal of artisanal vermouth and bitter liqueurs. Whether the crew of old bar flies perched on the stools know they’re in the presence of greatness matters not; they’re here for the beer and cigarettes, anyways.
• AS-256, 30, 33315 Villaviciosa, Asturias, +34 661 36 10 67, no website
Dream eggs and ham: Venta el Toro, near Cádiz, Andalucía
Venta el Toro, in the shadow of the whitewashed hilltop village of Vejer de la Frontera outside Cádiz, doesn’t serve much: sliced meat and cheese, a daily vegetable dish and, above all, fried eggs served over fried potatoes. Not just any eggs and potatoes, though: Both are cooked slowly in an abundance of olive oil until soft and outlandishly savoury. The sunset yolk becomes the sauce, while the jamón, if opted for (you should), lifts the creation to dizzying heights. It could take an hour for your order to come, but you’ll be kept company by beer- and sherry-drinking locals who know how good they have it in these parts.
• Santa Lucía, 11158 Vejer de la Frontera, Cádiz, +34 956 45 14 07
Wood-fired fantasy: Mannix, Valladolid
Two hours north of Madrid is a sterling example of Spain’s obsession with oven-roasted meat. At Mannix, it’s possible to eat almost anything, from tiny, juicy sweetbreads to inch-thick steaks, but you’re really here for one thing: cordero lechal (baby milk-fed lamb) slow-roasted in a traditional wood-burning oven until the point of collapse, then given a final blast of intense heat. As the skin shatters like a fallen wine glass, and the meat below pulls apart in tender, juicy ropes, all you can do is laugh at the genius of the Spaniards, and at your good fortune for eating among them.
• Calle Felipe II, 26, 47310 Campaspero, Valladolid, +34 983 69 80 18, restaurantemannix.com
Farmhouse feast: Els Casals, Sagàs, Catalonia
The rural reaches of northern Catalonia host some of Spain’s most powerful country cooking; none more so than Els Casals, where, from your bedroom in the refurbished farmhouse, it’s possible to see farm animals through the window and smell amazing things through the floorboards. What waits below is a dinner as honest as it is astonishing: oven-roasted local game, rice studded with truffles and young pigeon and, best of all, thick rounds of smoky sobrassada (raw, cured sausage) made from their own pigs, covered in honey and roasted until bubbling. The best part about staying the night? You get to wake up and do it all over again for breakfast.
• Lugar Casals, s/n, 08517 Sagàs, +34 938 25 12 00, elscasals.cat
Matt Goulding is author of Grape, Olive, Pig: Deep Travels Through Spain’s Food Culture (Hardie Grant, £16.99). To order a copy for £14.44, including UK p&p, visit the guardian bookshop
