Basking in glory with Bilbao's kings of cod

"Al bacalao, le debo la vida, el poco dinero que tengo y la popularidad," Jenaro Pildain, 1931-2004.

“To salt cod I owe life, the little money I have, and popularity,” the words of Jenaro Pildain, legendary chef of Bilbao’s Guria restaurant, show just how close this once humble food is to the heart of Basque gastronomy.
Local lore has it that fishermen from the rocky Basque coast sailed to America long before Columbus but kept the discovery of the new world to themselves to prevent rivals getting their hands on the cod stocks off what would become Newfoundland.
So Guria’s (

www.restauranteguria.com) reputation as having the best bacalao in Bilbao, has been hard won.
Restaurants like Guria can be found in all Spanish cities. Serious, discrete places, seemingly unchanged for decades and serving time-honoured dishes to a loyal clientele unhappy with any messing around with the old recipes.
Guria’s origins date back to the 1920s in el Casco Viejo the old heart of the city, but after the catastrophic flood of 1983, they moved out to the current location on the Gran Vía.
Inside there’s a bistro with dark wood paneling with a posher dining room out back decorated in el estilo inglés _ with leather seats, white linen and 19th-century political cartoons on the lemon-painted walls.
It's not only bacalao. There’s a menu packed with dishes like sirloin steak with fresh goose liver in sherry (solomillo con hígado de oca al jerez) or fillet of hake with hake chins and clams (lomos de merluza con kokotxas y almejas).
However Pildain wasn’t known as el rey del Bacalao for nothing. Although he passed on in 2004, his four classic recipes are still the centerpiece of Guria’s cuisine.
If you can’t decide, you can order bacalao a los cuatro gustos made up of a bit of each, or bacalao del chef where your plate is divided between the two chunks of cod each blanketed in the time-honoured Basque sauces _ pale green pil-pil or deep red Viscaína.
Bacalao al pil-pil is a deceptively simple dish in which the fish is gently heated with garlic, olive oil and a hint of chili in a clay pan until the oil from the fish emulsifies with the oil to form a think, pungent, mayonnaise-like sauce.
Viscaína is the signature dish of the maritime province of Biscay, a rich mixture of red peppers, tomato and onion.
The cuatro gustos option add a quarter plate of bacalao Club Ranero _ invented by a French cook in Bilbao in the 1930s who combined the two local favorites by adding a sauce of red and green peppers to bacalao pil-pil _ and Guria’s own cod recipe with spinach and yet more peppers.
This was all excellent, and well accompanied by an excellent Viña Alberdi crianza from the Rioja Alta. Be warned that both food and wine were powerfull stuff, so go easy on the starters _ go for a plate of seasonal grilled vegetables or a salad of asparagus with tuna.
Still hard to resist desserts like canutillos con crema de queso (cream horns with cream cheese) or cuajada con mel (ewe’s milk curd with honey).
Bilbao, like Lille or Manchester, is one of those gritty, working cities which have reinvented themselves as cultural and tourism centres after some bad years following the decline of steel and shipbuilding industries.
The unavoidable centerpiece of Bilbao’s renaissance is Frank Gehry’s startling, titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum (www.guggenheim-bilbao.es) which sits like some burnished battleship on the banks of the river Nervión.
It’s undoubtedly one of Europe’s great modern buildings and houses an eclectic mix of works from Richard Serra’s vast spirals of rusting steel to intimate Surrealist interiors. Perhaps the most iconic works are outside, Louise Bourgeois’ giant spider sculpture Maman, or Jeff Koons even more disturbing Puppy.
Much as been made of the Guggenheim’s restaurant, part of the empire of superstar Basque chef Martín Berasategui.
It has fabulous sounding dishes like roasted squid with hazelnut oil and Joselito ham, or roasted leg of suckling veal with curd of milk and mustard sauce.
Be warned though you need to book well in advance. Even getting a cup of coffee and a cake at the front of house café required considerable patience.
In Gehry’s wake, the world’s celebrity architects moved into Bilbao big time. Santiago Calatrava did the airport and the delicate arch of the Zubizuri bridge upstream from the Guggenhiem. Norman Foster designed the fast and efficient metro with its, glass, shell-like entrances known affectionately as “fosteritos. Mexico’s Ricardo Legorreta built the 10-story, raspberry colored Sheraton Hotel. Cesar Pelli is building the Iberdola Tower, which will be the tallest building in the Basque country.
Perhaps the city’s greatest architectural marvel dates from an earlier age, out along the metro line towards the seaside suburb of Getxo. The Vizcaya Bridge, popularly known as the Puente Colgante, or hanging bridge. This is one-of-a-kind iron structure, granted World Heritage status by UNESCO. It was built in the 1890’s by a disciple of Gustave Eifel. To allow the high-masted ships to sail into the port of Bilbao from the Bay of Biscay, it links Getxo to Portugalete with a bridge 50 meters up over the Nervión. Hanging from wires is a gondola that swings up to six cars across the river every eight minutes. Vertigo-resistant tourists can take the lift up to the top and walk over or ride below as a foot passenger at a cost of 30 cents a time.
FoodEurope normally likes to avoid the big hotel chains, but made an exception for the Legorreta’s Sheraton. (http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1457)
The rooms and public spaces abound with natural finishings _ marble, onyx, tropical hardwoods. There’s a soaring atrium rising above a column of light conceived by Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. The heated rooftop swimming pool is small but offers great views and downstairs there’s a hearty breakfast to be had at the Aizian restaurant, one of the trendiest eateries in town.
Early starters get tortilla, churros, tuna pie, manchego cheese, as well as more familiar international items.
Later in the day, renowned chef José Miguel Olazabalaga offers a menu that aims to modernize traditional Basque cuisine with tempting concoctions like presa ibérica sobre un turron de pipas y arroz venere y jugo de soja (Iberian pork on sunflower seed nugget and black with soja juice), or rape en costra de bacón sobre mermelada de tomate y pulpo al pimentón (Monkfish wrapped in bacon on tomato marmalade and octopus with red pepper sauce).
Food that's less of a mouthfull can be found in the countless bars in and around the old town serving pintxos – the Basque version of tapas.
One of the great pleasures of Bilbao is aimlessly wandering the alleyways of the Casco Viejo past the tall, narrow houses with their wrought iron balconies and glass fronted facades pausing when the fancy takes you to snack on a pintxo or two.
The imagination of Bilbao’s pintxo producers is endless.
This is a sample of what we got through in one weekend:
- Skewers of green olive and anchovies;
- Red peppers stuffed with creamed cod paste;
- Dried ham on a slice of baguette;
- Potato tortilla;
- Baby squid, tentacles up on a bed of tomato, pepper and onion;
- Bacalao al pil-pil on an open sandwich;
- Mushroom and shrimp kebab;
- Deep fried squid with lemon;
- Tuna pickled with onions, carrot and peppercorns;
- Anchovies with red peppers;
- Smoked ham with brie;
- Spicy tuna paste with shrimp;
- Ham and cream cheese paté.
One of the best places to sample such delights is on the terrace of the venerable Victor Montes café in the Plaza Neuva with a glass of the tart Basque white wine, txakoli. (http://www.victormontesbilbao.com/ivictormontes1.html)
Best of all however is the Café Iruna, outside the old town in the shady Jardines Albia, where the splendid tiled walls date back to 1903 and the pintxos morunos pull in the crowds until late into the night. These are fabulous lamb kebabs, marinated in lemon and paprika and grilled in a corner of the bar. You’ll want more and more but try to save some space for another house specialty, the Valenciano, a cocktail of freshly-squeezed orange juice, vanilla ice cream and Grand Marnier. The way to do it is stir until the ice cream melts then gulp it down. (http://www.cafesdebilbao.net/cafes/)
If you can face the thought of more food, between the old town and the river is the Mercado de La Ribera, an art deco covered market build in 1929 that’s filled with salted pigs tails, Villarcayo black pudding, Pamploma sausages or Idiazábal ewes cheese. Pildain would approve.