Victor, a hilariously charming waiter in Bilbao’s Asturian restaurant El Xiblu, tells me two things stopped him from moving to Australia a few years ago: “I’m terrified of spiders. And every time I party with Australians, I lose my shoes.” Four pairs to date. I have many questions for Victor. But first, what is this thing on the menu called arroz con pitu de caleya?
Victor launches into a tale of gigantic hens – gallinas, feathered tyrants that, as filtered through my imperfect Spanish, rule over an Asturian village whose people tend to their every need until the moment they are ready to turn up on the menu. The rice over which Victor carves the intensely flavoursome dark flesh of a giant drumstick and thigh is caramel-coloured, sticky and fragrant with gallina stock. I think I’ve gone to food heaven. But that’s a feeling you get a lot in Euskadi, or Basque Country. While El Xiblu was a treat, the local cuisine is the star of the show.
Food is as central to Basque identity as Euskera, the region’s unique, ancient language. Like Euskera, the cuisine itself is grounded in a landscape of looming mountains and isolated valleys, rich farmland and rugged coastline.
My partner is originally from Basque Country. After nearly 30 hours of travel from Sydney, we gaze out from the headlands of coastal Sopelana and let the breeze off the Cantabrian Sea help clear our jet lag. Below, waves crash onto beaches, chased by surfers. Ancient rock formations known as flysch, jagged and angled, slide into the sand and striate the sea like a giant, upturned slice of petrified milhojas pastry.
If you do not want to die a little inside every time you visit a Coles or Woolies, do not visit a supermarket in Spain, and definitely not in Euskadi. The one we go to is in Portugalete, a historically working-class town just 12 kilometres along the Nervión River from Bilbao. Mounds of fresh produce beckon, along with a well-stocked fishmonger, proper butchery, endless deli counters and hillocks of jamon.
One day we buy a fresh baguette and a squat glass jar of readymade marmitako, a soup of albacore tuna, potatoes, tomato, red pepper and onion. It comes hatted with a small square of waxed cloth in the same blue-checked plaid as the neck scarves that Basques often wear at local fiestas.
If you can speak even a few words of Euskera, you’ll win hearts and minds. Try kaixo (“kaisho”), hello, and eskerrik asko, thank you. Maybe agur, see you later.
Marmitako is Euskera for “out of the pot”. It’s the invention of Basque fishermen who follow the migrations of longfin tuna along the coast on extended trips during the summer months – a few staples on board, a good catch and that’s supper on deck. The dish is light and unfussy but filling and delicious. Like so much Basque food, it favours the simple magic of stewing or grilling over coals to bring out the flavour of the region’s excellent produce.
The Basque are a proud people, with a sense of difference from the rest of Spain. You’ll see graffiti demanding independentzia and the Basque flag – red background, green saltire, white cross – everywhere, but the violent struggle for separation that peaked in the 1980s is over. In the small seaside bar where we watched the FIFA World Cup final, the bar staff cut the sound of the broadcast during the Spanish national anthem, though most people lost their minds with excitement when Spain won.
If you can speak even a few words of Euskera, you’ll win hearts and minds. Try kaixo (“kaisho”), hello, and eskerrik asko, thank you. Maybe agur, see you later. Definitely pintxos, as in, I’ll have a few of those.
Pintxos are Basque Country’s more substantial and inventive version of tapas. They come hot, cold, perched on a chunk of bread, pierced through with a skewer, fried, baked or simply assembled from such simple ingredients as anchovies, roasted red capsicum and hard-boiled egg. A standard is the gilda, a long toothpick on which are skewered olives, anchovies and small pickled peppers – it’s named after Rita Hayworth’s titular character in Hollywood’s 1946 film Gilda and, like her, has plenty of salt and spice. Another is bacalao (cod) with pil-pil, an emulsion made from cooking the cod with its skin on in garlic-infused olive oil and then whisking the traces of milky protein with olive oil until it turns yellow. Pintxos go down well with a zurito, a small serve of beer, or a glass of the light, slightly salty local white wine known as txakoli – anything, really.
A glass and a bite here, another there, and you’re on a txikiteo, a Basque-style pub crawl. If you are on one in Bilbao, don’t miss Hambueysería, where it’s all about ox meat, from mini oxburgers grilled to perfection on the outside, still bellowing on the inside, to the croquetas that are a kind of meet-cute between béchamel and ox. And do go to historical Café Iruña, with its gorgeous Moorish tiled walls and central marble bar, which has been serving Bilbaínos for a hundred years, and where the cumin, paprika and saffron-seasoned lamb skewers (pintxos morunos) are the star of the show. The bars of Donostia, or San Sebastián, are famous for their pintxos, arrayed in FOMO-inducing variety on counters that seem to go on for miles.
Donostia is touristy and a bit pija (posh), but it’s also a stunner of a town wrapped around sensational beaches, and it’s a foodie mecca – the centre of a veritable constellation of Michelin stars. I encounter my dream tortilla (Spanish omelette) there, at Antonio on the Boulevard. No points for presentation – it arrives on the plate as if dropped from a great height. But this loose jumble of egg, carmelised onion, green pepper and potato marries a juicy texture to an indescribably delicious mix of sweet, salty and piquant. I later learn people have queued around the block for this.
We knock around Donostia for a few hours, checking out specialty food shops such as the one selling sheep-milk cheeses, including the punchy, vaguely smoky idiazabal that is made from the milk of the shaggy Latxa or Carranzana sheep native to Euskadi. I could get high on the shop’s heady smells alone. We also visit the chefs’ go-to market, La Bretxa, where there’s one large stall dedicated solely to cod – fresh, salted, every cut and every variation.
Walking down one of Donostia’s quieter streets, my friend Joseba points out a discreet doorway: it is a txoko, a private club and very Basque social institution where men gather to cook and dine together. These days, some txokos invite women in to share the meal – if I ever score an invitation, I promise to report.
Lunch is at Asador Aldanondo, an unpretentious local favourite serving traditional Basque cuisine. Among our shared starters are the moreish pimientos de Gernika, small grilled peppers with just the right degree of salt, olive oil and scald, and a dish of hot sliced mushrooms into which a raw egg is stirred. My main, kokotxas de merluza al pil-pil, consists of slices of buttery flesh from the throat of a local fish, smothered in a dull-looking but tasty sauce. Desserts feature Basque cheesecake, known here simply as cheesecake.
On one of our last evenings, we sprawl with some friends in the tall grass on a hillside in coastal Barrika to watch as the setting sun spills yellow pil-pil and liquid paprika across the surface of the water. On egin – bon appétit. Oh, and if you know anything about Victor’s shoes, do let him know.