This is one of the subjects conceptualized by the congress, an emerging theme that is shaping a path for the future that many people have started to follow especially after the passage of the coronavirus. This is all about the revival of “bistronomy” or stepping out of line to win. The subject of these unorthodox chefs will mark the story line on one of the five days at San Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country 2020.

It has been quite some time now that the only paths open to gastronomic restaurants have no longer been just those that follow the canonical model favoured by Michelin that lead to winning stars. There are more and more creative chefs who are opting for a certain degree of informality on their premises and are offering proposals that are committed to a direct kind of cooking without making great changes in food items, mostly using local, strictly seasonal ingredients.

Perhaps because of their unorthodox approach many of these chefs have not been very well represented at gastronomic congresses, although their customers are mostly inveterate gourmets. They have emerged spontaneously without any planning in various towns and villages in the last few years but they can now be considered to form part of a single group, with its own individualities and singularities, that transcend fashions.

They are not all bistros, nor do they all operate in a sphere that is far removed from the Michelin world, but they do all offer an alternative vision with a strong gastronomic personality at the same time as prices that are, in general, more moderate. San Sebastian Gastronomika-Euskadi Basque Country Basque Country is looking into this movement to rediscover, analyse and assess what could be called “post-bistronomy”, with a documentary, round tables and presentations from a dozen of these ‘alternative’ chefs.