luizhorta

Your bodega sounds a lot like being Vila Viniteca in Carrer Agullers, that is my favourite wine shop in the world, for the wines but also for the nice place, deep into the Gothic Quarter.

Sorry, made an awful confusion with the names, the hotel is Palacio de Samaniego, here is the link: http://www.palaciosamaniego.com/ The very nice couple that runs the place are Ana Maria and her husband, the chef, whose name I can't remember. It's a small hotel, they serve the tables themselves, have a good breakfast, the rooms are confortable and the place is magic, Samaniego is a village, with Remirez de Ganuza owing half of it, with his winery and vineyards surrounding the hamlet. They are in middle way between Contino, Remelluri, and all wineries in Haro (must visits are CVNE, Lopez de Heredia, Muga, La Rioja Alta etc etc). Rioja is a wine lover's paradise.

can't find it either. the web page used to be www.solardesamaniego.es but the page is not loading. Off course you have Las Duelas in Haro, Juan Nales is a very good chef, he had his own restaurant, now he is the chef at Los Agustinos hotel. Haro is a good place to stay too, close to eveything and a city with more structure, like pharmacy etc. I once tried to buy some things after 8 pm and travelled to 3 cities, Laguardia, Oyon and Samaniego itself and couldn't find any shop or drugstore opened.

I've not only eat but stay at Solar de Samaniego, very good place, very good food, chef and owner had his apprentiship chez Martin Berasategui. The place is beautiful, close to Remirez de Ganuza vineyard.

Adria's cultural importance cannot be despised, Santi Santamaria is an erudite chef, and the clash of their ideas are very interesting to help us read the zeitgeist, and we should examine cautiously their speeches and writings in order to have a better view of cooking in our times. Blumenthal's performance is just pathetic, a kind of disneylandization of many already childish and dazzled palates around the world. It's natural to have such mockery after Adria, the same way all vanguardist movements produced their own clowns through history, but the centre of the discussion is what Adria and Santamaria think.

Great! thanks for the report! I am glad you enjoyed it, Hisop is a best value in my opinion, along Sauc (now with it's 1st Michelin star). By the way, the dessert you mention "an astonishing pistachio soufflé with candied pistachios, arugula sauce, and a kaffir lime sorbet" received an appraisal here last august by Allain Passard, that cooked at the same event and ate some of Hisop's dishes.

And the Roca's Brothers are like Borges with the Nobel Prize, eternal candidates for a 3rd.

I am personally very glad for Xavi Franco, I think Sauc deserved his star since the last two years. Happy to see spanish stars rising.

I am glad. They are great value and very nice to chat with too. Enjoy your meal and tell us about, please.

I second Pedro's opinion, I would rather phone because I had some problems with many a place in trying a reservation through email.

Reservations are always recommended, I returned back twice at Coure in lunchtime and once in Sauc, deciding to eat for being nearby and without a reservation, they are small places. The price I dont know, perhaps in their page, www.hisop.com even it seems they dont update it frequently.

ok.

It was just a poetic license, Hisop t's not trendy or hype, has no stars and you dont have to wait long months to get a place. And its inexpensive and sympathetic, as Sauc, another favorite of mine. Perhaps I was not happy using the word to express what I wanted to: that its not so mentioned in guides and lists of places to go, but offer a very good creative and well done contemporary experience in food, slightly off the touristic beaten track, not a secret, indeed.

Have to say that the guys from Hisop, Oriol and Guillem, came here last month (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and did cook wonderfully, what is always very difficult, to be able to make a restaurant "travel". They are good at Hisop and abroad as well. Hisop remains an almost secret treasure in Barcelona.

I ate Andoni's food here in Sao Paulo for the 1st time, as I did with Santi Santamaria, sometimes the chefs travel, not only the jornalists, got it?

ok, of course it's opened to all persons (since they don't ask direct questions to the demi-gods and have they threads deleted), but I was adressing Victor, as you are adressing me when you say Luiz, or are we all Luizes?

And I really don't believe people in Montseny goes to Can Fabes, or people in Donostia usually have a lunch at Arzak. We are talking about Michelin stars all time, haute-cuisine, people that travel to eat at remarkable places. You don't think all these grand places can live and survive only on locals, do you? For local food I ask taxi drivers, they know best. Critics are like balloons, you give them too much gas and they explode. I always think that refusing the impressionists in a Paris show was art history, but who did it? What was the name of the critic who said Duchamp was bad? Critics...

I suggest you consult the NYT archives, where Andoni Aduriz is frequently listed among the best chefs in Spain nowadays. Arthur Lublow called him "the most harmonious cook in our days" and said if he had to choose one last meal he would like to have one cooked by Aduriz. The same NYT called Aduriz "wunderkind" some 3 months ago. I still want to know why and in which points Victor coincide with RGS, it's something in his (Victor's) last post that stayed unclear. I thank your answer, but I was adressing Victor about the hoot and non-hoot of stars. And what about Parker's points? Why so many winemakers cross the Atlantic with bottles till Maryland to be tasted by him? The same non-hoot thing?

I happened to be in Spain when Michelin announced the new stars. The uproar was appaling, if this is what you call "no one give a hoot" I fear to think what a hoot in Spain is...All major newspapers trumpeted the results. As to Andoni Aduriz, it's a lot of pretension to think some local spanish critics made his career. As far as I know he (as Ferran Adriá) owes much more to the New York Times than to the spanish critics. For local critics they both would be cooking paellas for tourists forever...Spain is the most interesting place on earth now despite and not because of local critics.

Touché!

well, i don't have the paper version, too heavy with propaganda to carry southern of rio grande, so it's up to you to compare.

Of course I can give some reasons. The main one is very simple and a little bit empirical: on november the 11th I had my 5th meal at Mugaritz this year, it was just perfect, superb, probably the best dinner I've ever had in my life. One week later Garcia Santos downgraded Mugaritz and Michelin upgraded it. I coincide more frequently with Michelin than with Garcia Santos, so I prefer Michelin, q.e.d. As a matter of fact I don't care about guides, I think internet and Foruns like this one are much more reliable, as a sum of opinions, but I couldn't avoid a perverse laugh on Mr. Santos disorientation in this small affair.

I prefer the Michelin.

Rafael Garcia Santos in his web page, Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia, tries, desperately, to explain why he reduced Mugaritz's number (the critics love numbers, in fact they love themselves a lot) from 9,5 to 8,5. It's a funny and pathetic exercise in nothingness, and I do recommend the text as an example of a man repenting his wanders in a minefield. The fact is that his guide was ready and printed and everyone knew it would happen when Michelin gave Mugaritz its second star...Panic and now this strange effort to put the train back into tracks. Too late Mr. Santos...

My choices: Mugaritz, Mugaritz and Mugaritz Kidding. In fact I had a very good lunch at Kursaal too. And MArtin Berasategui is worth a visit, of course. But Andoni Aduriz is at his prime. I would follow Pedro's advice, taking a taxi it's much much easier than driving to both places (Berasategui and Mugaritz). And a very good place to stay, I say with some pain in my heart because I do consider a secret that I don't want to spoil, is Hotel Niza, in the La concha Bay, if you happen to have a room with views to the sea it's the most beautiful place on earth ( and I am very close to Rio de Janeiro, I know what I am talking about).