Rating: 92. In the latest edition of the Michelin guide for Spain and Portugal, Restaurante Lasarte ("Lasarte") in Barcelona was awarded three Michelin stars, taking the total number of three-star restaurants in Spain to nine. Lasarte, part of the Martin Berasategui restaurant group, opened its doors in 2006. Chef de Cuisine at Lasarte is Paolo Casagrande (b. 1979), who has worked together with Mari...

Rating: 92. Long ago, before the era of celebrity chefs and their restaurants, the only way to taste a famous chef's food, was to actually go to his restaurant and have a meal there. How things have changed. Nowadays you can go to exclusive "an evening with" events closer to your home. They tend to come at a price however - in Ferran Adria's case the privilege would have set you back a finan...

Rating: 98. In 1976 the Spanish magazine "Club de Gourmets" organised a round table discussion for which they invited Paul Bocuse as a speaker among others. Attending this round table were Basque chefs Pedro Subijana (b.1948) who had just become Chef de Cuisine at Restaurante Akelarre ("Akelarre") in 1975, and Juan Mari Arzak of restaurant Arzak. Paul Bocuse's talk on "Nouvelle Cuisine" turned out to be so in...

Rating: 95. With 14 years of three Michelin stars, Martín Berasategui's eponymous restaurant in Lasarte-Oria is the second longest running three-star restaurant in Spain, behind Arzak in San Sebastian, which has had held three Michelin stars since 1989. Apart from his flagship restaurant in the Basque Country, Martín Berasategui (b. 1960) has 10 other restaurants, including Lasarte in Barcel...

Rating: 94. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Arzak in San Sebastian, Spain, as a three Michelin star restaurant. When Chef/patron Juan Mari Arzak was awarded the third star in 1989, he was the second Spanish chef to receive this honour. Arzak was originally established as a tavern by Juan Mari's grandparents in 1897. Juan Mari has been in charge of the kitchen since 1967 and he was one of the found...

Rating: 98. Everybody loves to predict a winner. With new three-star restaurants you often see that the third star has already been predicted by many, but occasionally there will be a new three-star restaurant that seems to have dropped straight from the sky - like a meteorite. In those cases, the restaurant wasn't on anyone's three-star radar, apart perhaps from the local foodies or the occasional lu...

Rating: 100. One of the nice things of having your own website is that there is no chief-editor whose job it is to limit the number of words of your article. If there was one and if I would be forced to pick four dishes to give an impression of the marathon meal at three-star restaurant Azurmendi described below, it would be 'Bloody Mar' - a swig of the sea, 'Duck Royal a l'Orange' - modern...

Rating: 98. Is there life without a water bath? For most modern top chefs, the answer would probably be a resounding "No". Sous vide cooking has become totally "de rigueur" in the last decade and in the hands of a competent chef the results of cooking food in the Roner (the state-of-the-art water bath with moving water and exact temperature control) are usually quite wonderful. The Ro...