vserna

I'm not sure myself if your opinion on what is authoritative and what isn't carries much weight authority-wise, Andy...

Mmmm.... Quite a statement, there. How do you know he's "the only person" who can speak "with any authority" on said conditions? I wonder how we could construe such an unwarranted conclusion - perhaps as a gross misrepresentation, at best mischievous, at worst mendacious? I happen to have a very direct line into the world of stagiaires at MB, Andy. You're the one, I believe, who's jumping to conclusions here.

I think both are very similar steak houses. Does Nicolás have a Madrid branch? I only know the Julián branch, which is one of the top three or four for steak in this city, to my taste.

Nicolás and Rekondo, yes. Roteta? Not in the major leagues by a mile, IMHO. Myself, I would tend to mention a 'big six' instead of a 'big five' in and around San Sebastián. The sixth one? Not nearly as famous, but oh-so-impressive: Fagollaga, in Hernani.

ginger chef is probably well aware by now that no one picked up the phone to call MB. I doubt eGullet participants are comfortable with the role of stool pigeons... By the way, comparing Berasategui's in-kitchen demeanor with crazy MPW's or sullen Robuchon's is a total riot. But it does prove that a totally false picture of this guy has emerged from this thread, which is just what I voiced concern about.

I don't know, Matthew. Have you ever been a stagiaire yourself?

No, life is hellish because accommodations and food are precarious and work is strenuous. But no stagiaire I know has complained about Martín's attitude.

Oh, life can be pretty hellish for stagiaires at MB - I wrote about that already. No question. But that's not my point. My beef is with an inkling of character assassination of MB himself, which I think is blatantly unfair.

It's very unfortunate that a genuinely nice and dedicated guy like Martín, whatever his restaurant's current shortcomings, comes out as a "sad jerk" here. Despite that latest disclaimer by gingerchef, I think all of his comments here as a stagiaire at MB have been thoroughly disparaging, to the point of caricature. And I have to wonder if he has some specific axe to grind... It's really amazing how everything can be so completely foul in the kitchen of a three-star restaurant!

I have been writing about food for 30-odd years - even a little more! - and all this time I never thought I'd see the day when I would follow, and participate in, a serious discussion on Spain's alleged culinary superiority over France. Wow! "Live to see", as the Spanish proverb goes... I'm naturally delighted, being Spanish, about this unthinkable situation, for which we have to be very thankful to Ferran Adrià above all people. But it would be best to keep things in perspective - to know where we're coming from and what the big picture really tells us. Three decades ago Spain was considered, not merely as an also-ran in the European food sweepstakes, but actually as the pits, as a culinary nightmare. The country was just coming out of deep centuries-long poverty (in 1960, Spain was probably poorer, compared with Germany, than the Ukraine or Bulgaria are today, compared with that same Germany), and had long endured a reputation as a place where food was dull, rustic, limited, and heavy, very heavy. The 1952 French book, 'Le monde à table', has a chapter on Spain (written by a Spaniard) which starts: "Spices, herbs, and heavy fried dishes with olive oil are the first things evoked by Spanish cuisine." When, in the early 1970s, Michelin re-started its annual hotel and restaurant guide to Spain, which had been discontinued since the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, it didn't include any stars for food quality. Asked about this anomaly, a Michelin spokesman said: "This guide is intented for an international audience, which expects certain culinary performances in starred restaurants, and we didn't feel they could find them in Spanish restaurants if we were to award stars to them." Some Spanish food writers responded with outrage, and around 1974 Michelin started, very gingerly, to award its first one-star ratings to restaurants in Spain. For many years, European critics were transfixed with 'nouvelle cuisine', and they also discovered Italy, China, Japan and even Morocco ("Moroccan cuisine is the best Mediterranean cuisine," Raymond Oliver of Le Grand Véfour fame told a Spanish audience in 1976) before they even began noticing that anything at all was happening in Spain. There was much less space devoted to Spain in French and European culinary publications than there was to Britain or Germany. Yet, a lot was happening, and curiously much of it was owed to France. Not to its obtuse critics, but to a number of cooks who served as role models and sometimes as actual sponsors of young, aspiring chefs from that forlorn southwestern corner of Europe - Spain. When Oliver spoke in Madrid in 1976, he was joined by Paul Bocuse in the first of many international food 'summits' in this country, and in attendance were many, often very young chefs who were avidly absorbing every word spoken by Uncle Paul. They included one Juan Mari Arzak and one Pedro Subijana, who (as I've mentioned in an other thread) were already running their own restaurants in San Sebastián - so obviously we're not talking about a recent explosion, but to a solid, three-decade long evolution. Michel Guérard inspired the Basque chefs; Joël Robuchon forged a close relationship with Ferran Adrià; Michel Bras has been giving demonstrations in Spain for years, and he (not Adrià, not Arzak) may be the main motivator and example for the younger generation of Spanish cooks. So the technical influence of the best French chefs has been a decisive one for all these years. Spain and France are next-door neighbors, and as such they share a complex, centuries-long history. Spain was the leading political power in continental Europe until it was overtaken by France in the 17th and 18th centuries and later sank to the brink of underdevelopment. So you can feel the superiority complexes in France and the inferiority complexes in Spain the minute their relationship is mentioned. It's such a difficult legacy of wars and alliances that nowadays there is a foundation, Diálogo, whose sole purpose is to improve Spanish-French relations and foster a climate of better understanding between the two countries. Last week, after the ruckus created by the Lubow article, Diálogo had the good idea to organize a roundtable discussion, bringing Ferran Adriá down from Roses and Michel Guérard down from Eugénie-les-Bains to Madrid to discuss this 'Spain as the new France' thing. It was a very good-natured meeting, of course, and neither Ferran nor Michel would even dream of saying "we're better than you guys". But Adrià, who's an honest man with no taste for pretense, made a clear-cut statement: "We've learned from them. Were it not for chefs like Guérard or Bocuse, we would be nothing." And that's indeed the feeling we who love good food in Spain share. We have nothing but admiration for France and for the way its own regeneration around 1970 helped the rest of the world redefine the very concept of fine food. If France seems to be going through a period of relative stagnation, it may very well be due to social, political, fiscal and legal conditions that are particularly unfavorable. But the genius of French cuisine, the sheer weight of French culinary tradition and professionalism, cannot be denied. No one in Europe would ever dream of doing so. That said, we've worked very hard in Spain for more than 30 years, and we may be just a tad less academic and ceremonial in our approach to food than the French are, so we certainly don't dislike all this sudden attention!

It's not a window - it's a legal period of the year when hunting is allowed. We're talking real wild animals hear, not farm versions. Every 'département' has its legal period for every type of animal. But in general terms, September through January is it.

Wonderful place indeed. Very good Rhône wines too. But with the proviso that this is probably France's most expensive bistrot - behind L'Ami Louis, of course.

It's always tough, when a couple of things go wrong, to right the course and keep a good memory of a dining experience. I remember the first time I went to Mugaritz (no Michelin stars yet at the time, but already 'the great white hope' of the Spanish culinary press), I was sitting with my friend and colleague who reviews restaurants for Spain's largest newspaper, and we mentioned to Andoni Luis Aduriz a detail that didn't convince us in one of his dishes. He reacted haughtily, basically replying that we were a couple of old fogeys with no notion of his culinary style, and that we hadn't understood a thing. There we were, the restaurant critics for this country's two biggest dailies, being chastised by a cocky young cook (who, in addition, wasn't even right - I think we were!). I was really, really irked at first - but I still recognized Aduriz's great talent. To this day, though, I have remained convinced that this kid's arrogance sometimes gets the best of him. He's a Berasategui protégé, BTW, and shares many traits of character with Martín...

Very good report, I think. Each restaurant's soul was very well captured by Robert; in Martin's case, I think it may have been a particularly bad day, however. PS One minor correction: Joselito, which cures the best ham in the world, is not in Extremadura, but in Guijuelo, near Salamanca - northwest of Madrid on the road to Portugal, and one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

Es Molí de Foc in Mahón/Maó: some say it's the best table on the island. Good seafood. La Caraba in Sant Lluis, in the outskirts of Maó: one place for modern cuisine with touches of Asian fusion. In Ciudadela/Ciutadella, where 'caldereta de langosta' (casserole of spiny lobster) is the unavoidable local specialty, try Café Balear. In Fornells, same specialty; the old-time specialist is Es Pla.

Re-read my post, pongi: "Except when you're eating one-day-old fresh asparagus..." Only top-notch fresh asparagus, just picked, can beat this type of vegetable, I wrote. That's my only point. I'm not saying that a canned vegetable can beat a great, just-picked, just cooked asparagus. Your white asparagus is in season March-June or so. So if you crave come in September, have a can and leave well enough alone. Or eat some Peruvian asparagus. You may love it. It's stringier, less perfumed than Navarra asparagus.

The (growing!) difficulty of finding fishmongers who'll offer fresh British seafood in British cities of sometimes considerable size never ceases to amaze me, coming as I do from Spain, where fresh fish can be found even in sleepy Castilian villages hundreds of kilometers inland...

Allow me to say that you give the impression of being incorrigible, Tony. Why don't you attempt the good old, and safe, empirical approach? Try the ones I've indicated (which some of the other participants in this thread obviously know well), and then opine about them... Prejudice is not a good adviser, in things culinary as in all walks of life.

That'll be the day!

vmilor: If it were just demands in the kitchen, no problem whatsoever. But my nephew also spent more than six months with Santi Santamaria at Can Fabes, which has a solid reputation in Spain for being, not the most creative restaurant, but certainly the most thoroughly professional and exacting place in this country, and the treatment they received was infinitely better. Better housed, better fed, better treated as persons, and of course worked to death - which is why they were there in the first place, so no complaint there.

I am strictly referring, from the start, to the 'gigante' or extra large, ultra premium (i.e., around one-inch, 2.5 cms diameter) white asparagus which are sold at caviar-like prices in Spain. Sorry for the confusion, for under the Cojonudos brand I know that there are a number of other qualities, and always smaller, asparagus that are sold. There are plenty of fresh asparagus of all colors available in Spain, and only the 'giant' justifies its use in a restaurant or a cuisine-conscious home kitchen. Navarre produces some of the most delectable types of white asparagus in the world (virtually nil fiber), so that we're pretty pampered in that sense: I see more fresh asparagus in any 'covered market' (i.e., Boquería-style) in Spain than in most places I know in the world. It's almost impossible to find the real 'giant' outside Spain: small production, big local consumption. So I do wonder if these were the Cojonudos you found. Were they? As I stated in my very first post on this subject (long buried now, so it may have been conveniently forgotten), "except when you're eating one-day-old fresh asparagus, the canned, big white asparagus from La Rioja or Navarra is very hard to improve on anywhere in the world." An asparagus is 95% water. Its aromas and flavors are extremely tenuous and soon evaporate. Those with high fiber content tend to lignify (turn stringy) and become tasteless; those of the delicate Ebro white variety, exceedingly tender because they have no filaments, sort of self-destruct. That's why the traditional method of scalding them quickly in boiling water, no more than an hour after picking, has long been favored in the region because, a) the flavors are sealed in; b) it ensures year-long availability: the actual season is not more than six weeks in spring, and these can't be replaced with Peruvian imports that are entirely different and of quite another quality. But obviously (I never disputed that!) canning diminishes any asparagus to some extent. And quite logically the bigger the asparagus the less it suffers from this treatment. That's why they're so highly valued and so darned expensive. Then again, the proof is in the pudding. I can say that now that asparagus is out of season almost anyplace (except for those produced under plastic tents, something that we also know quite well in Spain... and these are not very tasty), it'll be very hard to find something, among fresh produce, more delectable than one of those jumbo Cojonudos. Do try them with these provisos in mind, and I think you won't be all that shocked. PS Anyone traveling to Spain: bring back a couple of cans/jars home, and test them there!

A young chef I know very well (he's my nephew) has had training stints in several of the top restaurants in Spain, including seven months at Martín Berasategui, and he had his roughest time there. "Harsh" is how he described it.

I would be surprised, yes. Why? Because I've been writing these very same things in the Spanish press, as a relatively well-known food writer, for over 30 years. So by now everyone knows my very old-hat views. Which, by the way, are shared by most of my colleagues. Spain is not a parochial nationalistic backward place in 2003. Othrerwise, how could we have the type of cuisine that we now have? Can you imagine Ferran Adrià sternly controlling if every mushroom he cooks is from the Catalan hills? Franco's been dead a long time. Thank goodness.

Absolutely. Why not? I've had it made with Trapittu, a great extra virgin oil from Sicily, and it was sensational. After all, the only thing that's Basque in this dish is Basque culinary genius (which ain't hay, of course). All the ingredients are non-Basque: the olive oil is from Andalusia, Catalonia or La Mancha... or Sicily; the garlic is from las Pedroñeras, in La Mancha (the famed 'purple garlic'); and the salted codfish is from... Norway, usually. Culinary nationalism holds no interest to me. The only reason I write more about Spanish food and cuisine than about other cuisines is because I know it better than other cuisines and it's less well-known than other cuisines, so maybe what I have to say is a bit more interesting to other people than if I were to pontificate on the proper blanquette de veau... But I never forget that most cuisines are the result of some sort of fusion, be it recent or old. And I do love the great olive oils from Italy, whose quality levels are what ambitious Spanish oil producers have as their goal nowadays.

I agree with that. No need to show deference, of course. But do "do" prudence, won't you? Finding someone else's statements "laughable" may be termed, to put it mildly, imprudent.