Basque Spanish

Pintxos line a Bilbao bar like a cliff face — anchovy-and-pickled-pepper, txangurro spider-crab on toast, foie-gras with quince, a slice of tortilla with the egg still trembling in the middle. Bacalao a la Vizcaína (salt cod with red choricero pepper sauce) is the sit-down dish; Marmitako (potato-and-tuna pot) is the fisherman's. Txakoli — the slightly fizzy white — is poured from a meter overhead to aerate it. Idiazabal sheep cheese, Rioja red, txuleta beef chop seared rare on the parrilla.

Within Spanish cuisine, the Basque table is the most chef-driven — three Michelin restaurants per square mile, the new-Basque movement of Arzak/Subijana in the 1970s, Mugaritz today. The pantry: Cantabrian-Sea fish, Pyrenean lamb and beef, Navarra red peppers (piquillo, choricero), high-acid txakoli wine. Closer to French Basque (Bayonne, Espelette pepper) than to Andalusia or Galicia. "Cooking is everything" is a Basque phrase, not Castilian.