Traditional flavors expressed in with contemporary airs. Delighting in the flavors using haute cuisine criteria and innovative techniques. The results change without altering the historic, traditional sentiment. Tender, meaty, beautiful octopus with a lightly smoked flavor, far better than its boiled version, with regard to flavor and texture. The Galician identity reforms and adapts itself to the Basque country, inspiring a pepper and potato cream. The ñora pepper and charcoal oils confirm the traditional, singularly gastronomic aspect of the dish. The chard puree with potatoes and egg, cooked at low temperature, coincide with popular, ancient and indulgent spirit – character that is refined and staged with a gourmet attitude, producing a symbiosis that is beyond time and personal whim.

A new period has arrived in the triumphant era that Davide Scabin initiated, which will put him on the podium of honor in European cuisine. Curiously, contrary to the radical denaturalization he practiced in the past, today his brilliance has a sharp definition to it: Gastronomic Ecology. Two stunning examples serve as testimony to the essentiality and immaculate nature of the creations. The first, eggplant tataki, moved Martín Berasategui to say: “it is the best eggplant I have ever eaten in my entire life”… and in mine, his… anyone’s. The second is the daring and clairvoyant “check salad”, offering a new and groundbreaking idea on salads. It is a revolution of concept rather than technique, of pure flavors from the garden rather than sapid lucubrations on the part of the chef. It is about using talent to exalt the natural gifts of the earth to their highest point. The guest ruminates over the dish… intelligently tasting distinct products, independent of each other; it is not mixed together, nor should it be, only simply dressed with a solution of sea salt in water, which is sprayed in honor of the intrinsic quality of the ingredients. Nuts are arranged with the same objective and in accordance with the green philosophy that makes this dish so spectacular. Sometimes a little truffle is included; at other times a miniscule spoonful of caviar accompanies the dish. Chopsticks are presented to pick up each ingredient separately and a psychedelic spoon is served to give a little more grandiloquence to the grandeur.
Michel Bras’ gargouillou, Martín Berasategui’s warm salad of raw vegetables with lobster, cockles, razor clams, iodized juices and lettuce cream and this “check salad” are the greatest exponents of vegetable cuisine in recent decades; no more, no less.

A stellar reinterpretation of timeless flavors: the “cloud” of Iranian oscetra caviar. An ethereal potato foam encircled by an exquisite milk skin. It is served over sour cream and provides a bed for the majestic sturgeon roe. The textures and forms change, but the flavors are preserved, captured with an astonishing refinement. Sublime. Perfection made reality.

Bittor Arginzoniz has entered his name into the culinary history books by inventing ingenious new instruments over the years: “grill” pans, the bottoms of which are like a colander in order to char-grilled eel; pans that have tiny holes cut into them by a laser, so small as to be able to make risotto over the embers and impregnate the rice directly with the smoke; flat, miniscule casserole dishes to roast fish cheeks, anchovies, etc… but his most recent invention is perhaps the most innovative, the most surprising, and something that could only come to a truly privileged mind – a new type of grill for chops that incorporates an absolutely revolutionary technique in the preparation of meat. Brilliant.
It is a grill conceived in the image of an oven. In other words, with a top and a bottom. As for the bottom, nothing changes, the iron grill remains, in a flat position with a lever to raise and lower it over the embers as necessary. But the unprecedented aspect of this grill is the top. A rectangular, solid plate with a multitude of small holes that is covered completely by embers, previously prepared, using vine or olive tree wood. This rectangular metal plate with holes cut into it, brimming with embers, is then covered by another rectangular plate of stainless steel with 10 cm “walls” coming up on all sides in a way that all the heat is concentrated and not escaping from below, but refracted and forced to push down through the small holes.
The chops are placed over the metal plate with holes at a distance of 10 cm from the embers. It is then lowered onto the plate from above so that the flames are almost touching the meat, less than half a centimeter away. The flames from below, rising as a result from the fats released from the meat, caresses the pork chop in such a way that it lightly chars the meat and impregnates it with the aromas of the smoke. Curiously enough, while the bottom half caramelizes the surface of the meat, the top half takes on a grayish, browned tone, and the center remains perfectly red and hot; a heat that penetrates uniformly through the entire thickness of the cut. The whole process takes approximately ten minutes. As one might guess, there is no need to flip the meat. Another interesting aspect of this preparation is the salt – the best in the world, like everything used at this establishment –, gray Guérande fleur de sel, placed only on the top half of the pork chop, and in delightful abundance.