Italy invades San Sebastian

«There’s not just one Italy, there are many. Many countries in one. Different cultures and sensitivities. Many cuisines and distant flavours. North and South, the shady woods in Piedmont and the dreamy blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Alps and Vesuvius. Venice and Sicily. Milan and Rome. North and South». This is the passionate editorial written by Roser Torras and Xavier Agulló, curators of Gastronomika, one of the most important gastronomic congresses in Europe, based in San Sebastian, in the Basque Country, a city with a very high density of great chefs.

In three weeks’ time, from Monday 6th till Wednesday 8th October, this «double panorama of aromas», these «intertwined historic recipes, compositions with a complex modernity, street food and mythical products» will be explored in depth at Palacio Kursaal, the famous cube solidly based on the seafront. A stage on which 21 fellow countrymen will mount, divided between chefs (Monday 6th Massimo Bottura, Carlo Cracco, Pino Cuttaia, Gennaro Esposito, Mauro Uliassi; Tuesday 7th Nino Di Costanzo, Arcangelo Dandini, Norbert Niederkofler, Davide Scabin and Salvatore Tassa and Wednesday 8th Massimiliano Alajmo, Andrea Berton, Moreno Cedroni, Lorenzo Cogo, Matias Perdomo, Niko Romito and Viviana Varese), but also pizza chefs (Tuesday, Enzo Coccia, Enzo Piccirillo and Cinque Raimondo) and ice cream makers (Alberto Manassei of Gelateria dei Gracchi).

A true invasión italiana that will only be partially contained by the lectures given by the great Spanish chefs, of whom in fact many have been in the past, or will be in the future, guests on the Milanese stage of Identità such as Eneko Atxa, Dani Garcìa, Andoni Luis Aduriz, Carme Ruscalleda, Josean Alija, Ricard Camarena, Martin Berasategui, Pedro Subijana, Ramon Freixa, Jordi Roca. And there’s the Peruvian star Virgilio Martinez, with his brand new number one place in his continent’s 50Best who will also be at Identità Milano this coming February.

And this is only Alta, the juiciest programme dedicated to fine dining in San Sebastian. However, if one looks at the programme closely, there’s much more: besides the traditional stands in the Market area, there’s a dense programme of sessions with wine (guided by Josep Roca among others), parrilla and pintxos contests, workshops for kids and a series of lessons that will be open to the public, including, among the foreign speakers, Italian chefs who are working in Spain such as Max and Stefano Colombo of restaurant Xemei in Barcelona and Andrea Tumbarello of Don Giovanni in Madrid.

Programme, costs and registration to the congress are available on Gastronomika’s website.