The 11th edition of San Sebastian Gastronomika - Euskadi Basque Country's longest running competition will once again be one of its highlights. A Basque congress could not go ahead without a grilling activity, an activity that has become a target for all those Spanish restaurants that love cooking over fire. Participants choose the meat and the time they want to work on it. The organisation will provide the venue, the Josper grills, and a professional jury headed this year by Amaia Ortuzar, from the Ganbara restaurant in San Sebastian, which will include Pedro Subijana and Martín Berasategui, who will provide value judgements. “It's about respecting the product and judging the right time to use the fire”, the participants agree. Let's meet the eight candidates who want to follow the Amaren restaurant in Bilbao as the winner of the National Grilling Competition.

Narru
San Martín, 22, San Sebastian

A classic in San Sebastian. Iñigo Peña's temple has changed location twice before settling in the centre of the city in 2019. As a good Basque, the food offered up by Peña (ex Arzak, Martín Berasategui and Mugaritz) includes grilled food, which in his case is managed by Gorka Irure. With Peña from the start, Irure will represent Narru in the competition with German Friesian meat supplied by Guikar. “ There is no secret to grilling”, explained the grill chef. “It's all about putting good product on a good fire and taking good care of it. Grilling is a way of cooking that does not deceive, where there is no way of hiding a bad job”. Narru uncovered.

Txitxardin
Avenida de Oria, 12, Lasarte, Gipuzkoa

Sergio Humada is attending the competition on behalf of Txitxardin, the first of the two restaurants that will be hosting his Casa Humada in Lasarte in the near future. In the current restaurant, with its grill and tradition, the former chef of Barcelona's Michelin-starred Via Veneto surprises us from the start with recognisable but elaborate dishes, in which the grill plays a role. “It’s about having a good product; and I've always had that since I came to Barcelona, when I met the people at Arce”. Humada hopes to win the prize with a Simmental supplied by the Burgos meat company. His recipe, “knowing how to adjust and control cooking times”. As in life.

Balcón del Pirineo Ordesa
Vita, 49, Buesa, Huesca

Presiding over the entrance to the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park since the 1990s, the Balcón del Pirineo Ordesa grill house won the Aragonese Grill Chef Competition in 2019, so it is has form coming into the National Grilling Competition. “My parents started the business and I've kept it going by committing to charcoal and a Getaria-style grill”, explained its owner and grill chef, Jorge Rabal. He acknowledges that in the area where he is, veal is used more, “although we have gone for cow's meat”. With the idea in the near future of cooking his own animals (they are breeding wagyu and a variety of veal from Alto Aragon), Rabal is coming to San Sebastian with Hereford meat supplied by Cárnicas Goya.

Saizar 
Kalezar Auzoa, 38, Usurbil, Gipuzkoa

Ramón Lerchundi is competing again. The head of one of the cider houses that produces the most cider in the Basque Country is returning to his home congress to win. He is doing so with meat supplied by Discarlux bringing with him the experience that he treasures in the beautiful dining room of his restaurant, where he keeps the essence of tradition with a variety of adapted menus in which there is always a piece of meat or fish that has been grilled. At the facilities of Usurbil, Saizar completes the gastronomic experience with the possibility of a tour through the entire cider making process. 

Pura Brasa 
N-II, km. 671, Pineda de Mar, Barcelona

Manu Yebras understands embers. As executive chef of the six Pura Brasa establishments (five in Catalonia and one in Singapore), he runs a company in which one of his partners is the founder of Josper, the brand of stoves used in the National Grilling Competition. Far from being a plug-in, the Catalan loves grilling and he reveres it in his premises, where he opts for Kobe beef “of the highest quality” prepared "in an artisan, meticulous manner in Chile". For the entrepreneur, this is the trick, the standardisation of the quality of the meat. “Throughout the year we receive the same type of meat, meanin that we know how to work with it in the Josper with that smoky touch and that melting fat that fascinates us so much”, he explained.

Verum  
Flamencos, 3, Málaga

Jorge Berzosa is the chef and owner of the Verum grill house in Málaga, a three-year-old temple that defends the purity of the product “and truth in cooking”. Berzosa wants to recover the nobility of raw materials and enhance them without playing around too much, as he watched his father do in the different restaurants he managed in Aranda de Duero and Madrid. That is the reason for the name (truth, in Latin) and the reason for committing to the grill. “This genuine way of grilling has been lost, and here we want to recover it”, he explained. He is coming to Gastronomika with Friesian meat supplied by Makro, and truth up front.

Casa Lola 
Plaza Mercadal, 26, Tudela, Navarre

This time using Holstein beef supplied by the Cooperativa de Hostelería Navarra, Casa Lola  from Tudela will be competing for the second year running in the Gastronomika Grilling Competition, for which Carlos Corral will leave the cider house, located on the banks of the Ebro - in the heart of the vegetable region - where they specialise in grilling, for one day. Any quality meat or fish is well treated over the fire at Casa Lola, winner of the 2019 ‘Zarautz Parrilan’ Basque Country Grilling Championship. The trick for repeating success: “Cooking with great care, measuring the temperature and treading carefully when cutting”.

Asador El Esquinazo
Marqués de Celada, 15, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife

A gourmet reference in the Canary Islands. Its chef and creator, Baudilio Brito, specialises in highly matured meats, and accompanies the offer in the incomparable setting of the streets of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (World Heritage Site), in a noble Canarian house, an oasis in consonance with its surrounding area. Great meats without artifice - old Galician steers and cows raised by hand and matured slowly - gain flavour over the embers. El Esquinazo has exclusive rights for the whole of the Canary Islands to receive great highly-matured meat from brothers Aladino and Óscar Juan, from Cárnicas LyO, who have been named "the best meat producers in the world". They will come to Gastronomika with this meat.