You’re in a medieval cider house, angling your glass just so to catch every last drop of the amber elixir flowing from the spout of an enormous wooden barrel. The past few days here in the Basque Country have been a dizzying feast for all your senses: world-class contemporary art in Bilbao; medieval stone castles perched above the sea; al fresco lunches of sizzling lamb roasted over grapevines and washed down with wine from the vines clambering over the fence next door. There’s so much more to come — an epic pintxos crawl through the old town of San Sebastián; cooking classes and fish markets and wineries galore — but for the moment, in this timeless place, all you want is to stand still and breathe it all in. You take another sip of cider, relishing its tannic, woodsy funk. After all, if there’s one thing you’ve realized over the past few days, it’s that life in the Basque Country is meant to be savored, not rushed.
We’re traveling alongside chef Chris Arellanes, an acclaimed chef and a longtime lover of the Basque Country. Chris learned to cook at the California Buddhist monastery where he grew up — and then moved on to New York Michelin meccas including Per Se, Eleven Madison Park and the Nomad. In these elite kitchens, his mentors reinforced teachings that Basque cooks know inherently: That food is the thread that binds people, landscape, and tradition together into a living, breathing cultural fabric.
