The Basque Culinary Centre is the first university of Spanish cuisine. Located in the Miramon Technology Park, just a few minutes’ bus ride from the centre of San Sebastian, it was opened in September 2011 and is currently the main training centre for the future talents of haute cuisine, hospitality and the Spanish food industry. Some of the best chefs in the world, such as Alex Atala, Gastón Acurio, Heston Blumenthal, René Redzepi, Massimo Bottura, Michel Bras, Dan Barber, Yukio Hattori and Ferran Adrià, are on its International Advisory Board and are, in fact, its 'ambassadors' in and out of Spain. The five-storey and 15,000 square metre buildi

Very brave you have to be to compete with your culinary skills in a region of good eating and good drinking like Valladolid. For a few days in November, the Castilian capital further enhances its offer with the best of haute cuisine in miniature, as the centre for the National Competition of Kebabs and Bites, receiving only the most talented and imaginative. People able to recreate the planet Mars with egg dumplings and mushrooms or dress a vertical salad. The flavours in Spain (and the rest of the planet) concentrate in one place. Professionals come from around the country who usually serve in their bars. Besides choosing three winners, the best concept is valued, the most avant-gar

  Become Ferran Adrià in just three hours? Let's say that the challenge is obviously impossible, but why not learn the secrets of Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine? This might almost be a perfect plan if we are visiting Barcelona and we also love cooking. The Cook and Taste workshop, given in English and French, is what sets the challenge.   On the Barcelona Ramblas, this cooking workshop gives one-day courses on Spanish cuisine that give not only the theory, but also the practice. Let's say that our idea is to make a good gazpacho or better still a paella; on this crash course for travellers who want to learn to cook, the first step is to buy the ingr

Like many Spaniards, Pedro Álvarez believes the most interesting thing about tea was the ounce of chocolate you always found inside the bread. Time turned the child into a man and from there into a businessman, but chocolate remained intact in his diet.    Álvarez was born into a family of entrepreneurs. From his very first day at work, he devoted his time to inventing brands and planting seeds where companies would grow, and one day he decided to apply the trade to himself. He was not want of desire, he just needed to know what to do.   Mmm... Chocolate?!   Yes. “Premium chocolates in a fine, original presentation”, sa

  Wines, fruit in syrup or wine, honey… Between León and Galicia, the region of el Bierzo hides a singular gastronomic treasure.    This district of the León region in the Sil river valley conceals a singular gastronomic treasure, and its inhabitants do not hesitate to promote their products whenever they can. And not just this; if the area stands out for something, it is its wine production. In just ten years, between 1990 and 2000, wine production passed from over half a million bottles to almost six and a half million, according to data from the El Bierzo Denomination of Origin Regulating Council.    One of the most famo

  Prepare a few Mediterranean whiffs stirred well with a large dose of coloured brick. Accompany the mixture with the aroma of Iberian settlements, remains of the Roman Empire and sprinkle the last touches of the Arab domain. Give the whole lot of Catalan accent. Finally, bathe the mass in the lower course of a river of Girona. A spoonful of Venice, another of Oporto… in the oven and ping!: the Hanging Houses over the river Onyar. A feast of architecture for one's sight in the heart of Girona.   Undoubtedly the most genuine view of this Catalan city hardly one hour from Barcelona. The Hanging Houses lean over the river Onyar, one of the four rivers crossin

  The works of the Canary architect painter and sculptor César Manrique are an example of how development can live in harmony with nature. The best thing is that we can also feel it on our palate. César Manrique made the Canary Island of Lanzarote his work ground and carried out different architectural projects which, like the pools of Los Jameos del Agua or the Cactus Garden, show how construction and respect for the environment result in places that you would never leave.   At the island’s great natural referent, the Timanfaya Nature Park, César Manrique wanted to go further and attract a sense that architecture normally ignores: taste.

    Maybe you have never wondered why a tomato is red and not dark blue. This colour is due to the presence of a substance called lycopene, known for its powerful antioxidant action, which is also produced in watermelons and in other fruit and vegetables to a smaller extent. The human body does not produce it and when it eats it in a tomato, it is only capable of assimilating 5% of all of the lycopene ingested.     Extremadura University and a company from Badajoz decided to investigate how to make better use of this appreciated tomato antioxidant that many people take in tablet form because it protects the cells from oxidising stress. T

  When I remember my visits to the Boqueria market on the Barcelona Rambles, what I remember is the life and colour. The life of the hundreds of stands full of goods, the life of the people filling their shopping baskets and getting their energy back with a fruit juice or enjoying a glass of Penedés with the Saturday hors d’oeuvres. The colour of the explosion of hundreds of glasses of water melon, melon, orange and kiwi drinks, of the tomatoes from the vegetable gardens and the brilliant baskets of strawberries.   The Boqueria is Barcelona. It is a cocktail of visitors and people of Barcelona from the Raval, Gothic and Born districts. The perfect metaph