Word: chefs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...obscurity of Can Fabes seems odd since the restaurant is one of only four in Spain to have earned three Michelin stars and routinely draws an international clientele. Also unusual: chef-owner Santi Santamaria will probably come over to your table and say, "Hola." Not many world-famous chefs do that; most aren't even in their kitchens on a daily basis, since they're too busy empire building. But Santamaria, whose restaurant occupies the first floor of his family's ancestral home, takes an Old World pride in his place--while serving up slick modern dishes like calamari with...
...foodie mecca, Spain draws culinary pilgrims the way France did a generation ago. Hit the Basque town of San Sebastián, and you'll be surrounded by restaurants serving inventive, often experimental cuisine: places like Arzak, a three-star Michelin legend, and in the countryside, Etxebarri, where chef Victor Arguinzoniz takes such pride in his grilled meats and fishes that he bakes his own charcoal out of different tree branches every morning in an oxygen-controlled oven. At the Guggenheim in Bilbao, a prodigy named Josean Martínez Alija, 27, is winning accolades for dishes like roasted tomatoes stuffed with...
...shut out of El Bulli and stuck in Madrid, don't fret. The city boasts plenty of innovative places. One of them is La Broche in the Miguel Angel hotel, whose executive chef, Sergi Arola, apprenticed with Adrià. Dining at La Broche is an immersion in formalism. The color scheme of the dining room is sci-fi white, from the rectangular tables to the window blinds. The wait staff is all business (as is most of the clientele). The food, accelerating in flavor and intensity through a meal, seems conjured in Adrià's lab: breaded fois custard cream with apricot...
Another excellent, lesser-known jewel in Madrid is a Spanish-Asian fusion place, Nodo. Order a gazpacho here, and you won't get the dressed-up salsa so common in the U.S. Chef Alberto Chicote serves a delicate peach-colored purée, close to a sorbet, poured at the table from an Asian kettle and served in a bowl of ice. The raw tuna tataki in garlic-and-almond sauce featured soft, subtle flavors; a heaping portion of medallions of roast suckling pig, accompanied by caramelized onions, was sweet and succulent...
...dishes of gluey paella, watery gazpacho, oversalted cod and lamb scraps advertised as cutlet. In Madrid, where Moroccan food is in vogue, we ordered a salad at a trendy place called Mosaiq and received taco filling. A dollop of wasabi next to a greasy piece of fish was the chef's idea of fusion...